My Confessions: A personal psychoanalytical study of the feminine and masculine nature of the spiritual and its historical juxtaposition towards the formation of movements in a milieu of patriarchy Volume 4

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Merlyn Peter, M.A.

Self-printed by South London Permaculture A YellowBooks Production

Self-Published April 2020, This book is not the product of any legal entity, but of an ambassador to God, a human Being. Permission should be sought from the author for its further elicitation.

In purchasing this book you are agreeing to support its cause towards its further publication and any related works. If the material contained therein is wilfully used antagonistically and offensively for the dissolution of the organisations responsible for its publication, and towards the integrity and respect of the individuals who uphold its cause, you will be contravening natural law. The author cannot be held responsible for your demise in such a case.

South London Permaculture PO Box 24991 London SE23 3YT [email protected]

Merlyn Peter, M.A. Contents El Propheta ...... iii FOREWORD...... iv INTRODUCTION ...... viii My Confessions: A personal psychoanalytical study of the feminine and masculine nature of the spiritual and its historical juxtaposition towards the formation of movements in a milieu of patriarchy ...... 1 Mark 8:31 King James Version (KJV) ...... xvii John 3:14-15 King James Version (KJV) ...... xix Isaiah 53:5 King James Version (KJV) ...... xix John 12:24-27 King James Version (KJV) ...... xix Genesis 2:21-22 King James Version (KJV) ...... xxv Bereshis 2:21-22 Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) ...... xxv Genesis 15 King James Version (KJV) ...... xxv 1 Samuel 26 King James Version (KJV) ...... xxvi 1 Corinthians 11:7 King James Version (KJV) ...... lx Matthew 1:20 King James Version (KJV) ...... cxix Isaiah 44:3 King James Version (KJV) ...... lxix John 1:33 King James Version (KJV) ...... cxx John 14:26 King James Version (KJV) ...... lxx John 12:40-46 King James Version (KJV) ...... lxxi Acts 2:17 King James Version (KJV) ...... Error! Bookmark not defined. Luke 12:27 King James Version (KJV) ...... lxxxvii Revelation 11:7 King James Version (KJV) ...... clxxxv 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 King James Version (KJV) ...... cvii ENDNOTE ...... Error! Bookmark not defined. Bibliography ...... xvi Further website sources ...... cxviii List of Illustrations: (All photos and illustrations by the author via Facebook and WhatsApp messaging unless indicated)

Figure 1 Photo of a book entitled ‘Modern Spanish Unseens’ by W. A. R. Richardson (1964) ...... A

Figure 2 ‘The Prophet’ by Paul Tucker ...... iii

Figure 3 Portrait sketch by Paul Tucker ...... iv

Figure 4 ‘The Virtual Supper’ adapted from the original by Leonardo de Vinci ...... vii

Figure 5 ‘Merlyn Plays the Roman Stones’ by Christina Salvadó ...... xii

Figure 6 Androgynous Adam and Eve ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 7 Augustine_Lateran ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 8 The Bard by John William Waterhouse 1916 Decameron ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 9 You must be the Change - Gandhi...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 10 Death-miniature-peasants-manuscript-Wat-Tyler-Richard ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 11 Emma Jung’s Inner/Outer World ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 12 Osiris the Fertility God ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 13 Rom,_Vatikan,_Basilika_St._Peter,_Die_Taube_des_Heiligen_Geistes_(Cathedra_Petri,_Bernini) ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 14 Emma Jung’s Inner/Outer World (adapted) ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 15 Edward_Burne-Jones.The_last_sleep_of_Arthur ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 16 Johann_Heinrich_Füssli ...... cliii

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Figure 20 1280px-Apocalypse_vasnetsov ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 21 Destruction_of_Leviathan ...... clxxxiii

Figure 22 Mithrasunmoon ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 23 Strudwick-_A_Golden_Thread ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 24 _109168654_gillray_getty ...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 25 Emma Jung’s model for the the role of the anima/animus in the human psyche (adapted) ...... cxv

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El Propheta Un barco me espere en la vida futura, quizás Como demoro en el muerto de los héroes Una visión de llamas lentamente estar extinguido Veo la cultura muriendo mientras estoy en pie al lado de ella La raza de seres humanos hunde de unir con las civilizaciones perdidas de antigua

Una sombra lanza mas lejos que como hace mi brazo extendido Ni pueden los dedos míos tocan los ángeles ardientes Necesito devolver a dar la cara al sol

Y mis labios necesitan vibrar como una caña en los vientos Sino mis pies siguen chapotear en las mareas subidos

Puedo nadar solamente tan lejos como vea yo Antes lucho a mantener la cabeza sobre la mar Y encontrar a los demás que ya han hundidos Que esperan la caída del héroe Para que no se sintieran solas en sus fracasas

Dios es un pescador La mano Suya me jala siempre Dios es un marinero Sus redes me lavan con el resto

Estoy rozado junto con los sedimentos del tiempo Me pican la superficie a dejar la piel cruda Pero el lavase es profundo y significante Me prepara para la ascensión mía Hacia la boca de edades antiguas

Allí canto con miles de voces Soy la voz del futuro De la vida que debes seguir El profeta asciende otra vez Con puños llenados de los perdidos

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FOREWORD This book came about in the same manner that I wrote another book entitled The Virgin and for the same reason, as a self-introspecting way to come to terms with the break-up to a girl I was falling in love me. Molly, the main protagonist in the first book, was a virgin who, living as a traveller in a caravan on a Welsh farm with her family, was only partly educated from home. At the time when I first met her I was just finishing my dissertation in order to complete my Masters program in Ecotheology, and was only 2 of the whole group who achieved it due to govenment university cuts and the lack of facilities in my final years. I saw Molly as a gift, and I still have favourable memories of how, in retrospect, she lived like I do now. I slept with her for one night only under the most extreme circumstances in a very cold tent. My situation changes when I return to London to work because in London I am homeless, yet I rely on the favour of clients and friends to put me up for free as I cannot earn enough money, or have the desire to, for want of preferring the life on the farm in Catalonia. It is ironic how the girl I fell in love with had the life I now have myself. She was a learning harpist and one of the possible developments to our relationship would be a musical union of sorts. The whole scenario had mythic tones about it; Wales, the land of heroes and tragedies. As of what became of her I don’t know for sure, but the irrational behaviour she exhibited towards the end of our relationship, induced to a degree by her mother’s domineering presence, allowed me to self-destruct as now she was playing me off against another Welsh man who I would never meet. Why she would do that when she was so obviously fixed upon me I never understood then. But when I look back over that relationship, I try to pinpoint where I could have been different or whether there was another element to this story that was affecting me, more to the point, could I have changed the outcome. It didn’t make sense then and I was deeply hurt. What does make sense though is that had I fully engaged in my relationship with Molly I would never have become the person I am now, nor made those incredible journeys on a bicycle around the world since then.

Here on my own farm I am probably leading the life she would have aspired to. It seems I have internalised her spirit - the Virgin of the wilderness. Full of music and creativity, my vision was to extend this influence to volunteers with a view to an eco-community in the future. At first I came up against resistance from my parents who were still relatively healthy in their sixties, and for a few years could manage the olive crop themselves. Besides, I was not inclined to abandon my business and the funky cheap 2-bedrood flat I had in South London which was my hub - Solteriologic Garden - for my permaculture work. As you progress through this book I recall accounts and stories from those days and the encroaching materialistic influence of a force I couldn’t allay then. I wondered why too many things going on around me appeared to have a 3rd-party influence. Not least was this dichotomy of lifestyle split down the middle between materialism and spirituality with such accentuation that it almost looked as if I was leading 2 separate lives. The inference I make by the end of this book you are going to read is that spirituality is a magnet for materialistic predation. The encroachment of numerous young girls plying themselves towards me only later began to take on a cynical aspect as gradually I found my truer self and leaned towards the preference for a spiritual life. I have not been allowed to be that person, again for the reasons that it always looks like somebody is interfering in my private life. Every person you will read about in this book is real, every word, account, description of events, is as accurate as I can remember. I do not baulk at the truth. If I thought that coming to the farm to live permanently in my own caravan after I had lost the flat in a legal battle was going to change anything I must have been deluded. In fact, I didn’t believe nor disbelieve that the continued interference in my life by 3rd parties was going to stop. After their initial appearance I just took no notice them again. I did what I do best, as with Molly, I wrote about everything in my books, journals and newsletters. But I always wrote from an angle of creativity; it was not to be a paranoic jibe at society or at evil per se (whatever that could be).

And so with time I started inviting friends and volunteers. Everytime I approached success, and bear in mind that I had been working with volunteers for 15 years in my permaculture works and that I had a very successful business because I am good at what I do, it should not have been any different; a natural step up from my garden and scattered influence I may want to believe onto a farm a little less than 3 hectares in size. Unfortunately that same influence has been corroding my work here also in the form of sabotage and malicious gossip. It would not be long before young girls were plying towards me again. This book is the means to come to terms with these phenomena, but for one main reason. As I say, in the manner that I met Molly so, all these years later I met another girl by the name of Kirsty who I began to fall in love with. I have met enough girls to know why my relationships succeed and fail, in which at the inkling of their being any irrationality and outside interference I react to by self-destructing in order to protect myself. To be honest, it has been a history of female abuse targeted against me, and this may come as a surprise to the reader in this current milieu in which it appears that women are always the victims of men. Bear in mind also that I have a cantankerous mother who appears more often than not as the antagoniser in her relationship to my stepfather, and this occasionally overflows towards me albeit she is so isolated now that common sense dictates that she takes the foot of the gas occasionally. You may interpret the contents differently. But let me throw you some facts first.

This phenomenon is English; it followed me here from London. I may wonder what I could have become if I was brought up by my Greek father and reclaimed half the cultural heritage that I warranted, but even that seems to have been internalised through my writings. There is quite a large contingency, or there was since many Europeans have left, of English here. Why my stepfather chose this location I can only speculate upon because he would have had some knowledge of their foreign antics. If my mother’s accusation that the English are thieves and criminals appears a little farfetched, then think again. Many criminals have ended up here and I know for a fact now, due to their infiltration into my life, that they are responsible for sex and paedophile rings. I also know that the police have inside information on such activity but have appeared to do very little except acquiesce to the ongong events. The last thing they want is to damage the tourist industry. It’s quite sordid, but you wouldn’t see it unless you belong to such an institution. I have begun to level quiet accusations at my stepfather and wondered how deep he got into it. Personally, I don’t like the English too much, they don’t learn the language, they can be quite rapacious and miserly, and besides, I am an old- fashioned farmer. The foreigners here are tourists and care very little about Catalonian culture. They whinge when sterling is not worth as much, they broke the law consistently and lubricated the hands of corrupt officials in the old days in order to establish themselves when erecting their homesteads. In effect they ran their own rules, all told my mother is quite correct in the main; many indulge in a decadent lifestyle but it would be unfair to level this observation at everybody. For a start, I am self-proclaimed anarchist and you will never see me comply with the law if I felt it is ill-conceived. A very recent example reinforced this point to me, that under the Covid-19 lockdown we were limited to going to the shops only to buy essentials. When the local police stopped me returning home with 2 bottles of water on the back of my bicycle, and being aggressive at it, I refused to cooperate. I threatened them with the law ironically, as I called the Guardia Seville to inform them of their rights. Quite simply they had no jurisdiction. The water bottles were filled from a fountain but that should not make a difference. These are humanitarian laws that highlight the rushed attempts to impose strictures on society in the midst of a crisis.

On the farm my stepfather doesn’t really want me here. My mother grew increasingly anxious at their own lifestyle off the grid and always questioned her husband’s motives. And besides, even if her family were fascists from the Franco era that should not apply anymore. They were happy once but now the relationship is so toxic that I wouldn’t put it past both of them to kill each other, albeit slowly. This has been one of my ‘quiet’ accusations towards both of them, lacing the milk to induce a calming effect that to me, unknowingly, may have caused some of my ill side effects and an inconsistent bowel. My stepfather wants a quiet happy retirement, my mother wants him out. They didn’t listen to my advice and still don’t in the way they run their lives and built their home, and they have an inability to communicate with each other even after more than 40 years of marriage whilst showing very little appreciation to the fact that I have been managing the farm almost single-handedly for the last 8 years. Quike frankly, they have very little love for Catalonia; my mother would have been better nearer her brothers and sisters in Madrid and Asturias.

As for my own friends I have seen them come and unexpectedly go. Why? Is it that 3rd-party interference again? Likewise my volunteers, as soon as I turn a blind eye they want to pack up and move on even when I give them the royal treatment. And what about my long-term friends, why have they avoided the project? This is the same phenomena that belittled my heroic efforts in the UK in those final years. Without an objective overview I am reduced to a metaphysical reality that is dependant on my intuition. But the young girls still hound me, and too many things go wrong on the land to justify them as accidents. I would turn my back and find that my vehicle or tools don’t work anymore. I would check over the irrigation system and find it was drained or turned off. I have seen structures torn down, bees go missing, items that would disappear and reappear as if by magic, or come across a brick wall when asking my old man to do me a favour like watering the trees. You know, in all these years he has never said thanks for anything I have done for him, and has never appreciated the ongoing costs and maintenance of the farm, merely retorting ‘For what?!’ meaning for who? I cannot even earn a free meal on the table without him begrudging me. His intention was to never have me around here. Their attitudes have changed a little now the both are old and dying and his cancerous life is sickened by her nagging whilst she remains immobile waiting for a knee operation. But I have to keep asking the question, ‘Why are you (in the plural) setting up these females in my life and breaking off those girls I fall in love with?’ The mind boggles, but the simple answer is that in order to maintain continuity they need someone on the inside. All will be revealed. As for Kirsty, even though I bought her a flight to come over and join me, her irrationale behaviour also reared its ugly head but I used this energy to fuel my writing as I do any girl that dares approach me. Creativity is both physical and metaphysical. It’s not that I don’t have the material resources to bring up a family, I believe natural providence would take care of that, it is more that I would have to choose between what I am more successful at, either my brain-child and all the emotional force to create something that the whole world could share in, or bringing up another human. I feel like I am on a crusade only that this is more the pilgrimage and not the bountiful loot at the end of it that the Latins, coincidentally the Spanish idea in collaboration with the rest of Europe, seized from Africa and Asia Minor when they came to divide Noah’s spoils. The needless massacre of Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians is the context to reclaim my stolen heritage.

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INTRODUCTION When you begin to read this book I am aware that you will be coming to the table with your own personal baggage. This is a form of discrimination; some of it learned other parts unconscious. Had this been a personal letter to you you may have felt the desire to respond immediately. I welcome such interest, and in the manner that such literature as this, since I profess it to be wholly so, can stimulate commentary then you are entitled to express your opinions. You may even improve on my ideas, at least share their intuitive basis. In this latter I demand it so before you fling criticism. People in power have always been the objects of antagonism, and here power is ‘in the pen’. Quite often the most enduring symbols of social salience come from those who embody the extremes of life and whose words and phrases are full of contradictions. Many of these persons are on continual life-learning experiences that never cease, and they do so because one thrives on these apposites to produce a new idea or experience in their creativity.

In spite of what you may think of your opposite, whether you consider that thing or person to be your adversary or not, remember that it is wholly impossible to create the perfect society from purely human motives; you cannot please everybody. Yet every person has this ability in the human make-up to show understanding, tolerance and compassion regardless of whether you think that person deserves it or not. Humanity, you may accord, is full of historical mistakes in its handling of such personages. It is too late to undo those mistakes but not too late to learn from them. When you realize that human culture is quite a recent phenomenon and that the very basis of its conscious will to change our environment creates its own problems then you may understand that the problem is rooted in human consciousness, human will per se. The diasaggregation from all other species on the planet should enlighten you as to why we continue to favour our own methods and techniques over those produced by Mother Nature. It is premised on basically one element in our make-up which is: IT IS A SURVIVAL INSTINCT. Without denying ourselves our corporeal make-up and evolution from the animal kingdom, we should be aware that we still don’t really know what type of species existed in that interface between plants and animals. That said, the point being is that much of our origins remain unconscious, and so it confounds me why humanity, and by extension, human culture, believes it has the answers to create the perfect society. In all respects I don’t think it believes it can, rather it accepts the fact that it stumbles along whilst coming to terms with this individual need to survive at the providence of anything that passes its eye. Bear this in mind, it can only be self-delusion to think that we can restructure human culture based upon human knowledge alone if we want it to function as successfully as nature. In fact human culture is humano-centred; it can only be and will always be until it learns to evolve like any animal or plant. And that is the key without which the conscious will to evolve and change our behaviour patterns we will always remain stumbling along by DEFAULT. This default behaviour gives rise to cities and the concentration of resources purely out of fear of dying. It is a development from the dawning of civilisation. I want you to consider this axiom:

THE PERFECT ENVIRONMENT CREATES THE PERFECT HUMAN

This was a revelation when it came to me. All my years of work were vindicated in this one statement. If humanity could focus more on creating the perfect environment then it would follow that our instinct to survive would serve us more easily whilst allowing our conscious will to acquiesce to such perfection. The mistakes inherent in human societies would wither away. Not all of them as forever humanity is changed and so is the environment as for instance in the way we respond to the externalisation of memory through technology. Beyond that I don’t know.

Can you really tell me that we are creating the perfect environment? No, I answer for you. The sacrifice would be too much for many of you. Not least are many of you so dependent on human culture for your empowerment that the very effort to tear yourself from it in your redemption of Mother Nature seems too uncertain in the future. Such is your empowerment granted from human conscious directives that you have remained its slave without knowing it. This is your unconscious will albeit the repressed part of your consciousness; I am not referring to the instinct which derives its motivation from billions of years of existence, but from human history that is always picking up the pieces, BY DEFAULT, and persevering to recreate what it has just lost. To come out of this vicious loop is a paradigm change in consciousness which is not beyond you. In fact, we have institutions that help you do that, and there have been many great individuals in the world, some leaders, some forgotton, who paved the way for change in human culture. This is evolution not development, it is spiritual, but it first requires you to submit to nature in the face of your individual claims to power and prosperity. Humanity can only survive into the future as a social unit. The great space race is now a collaborative project on the International Space Station (ISS). It is the lesson that we have learnt on a bedraggled Mother Earth who is now at the end of her tether and chewing the last threads that will unleash chaos. This is default action of an unconscious type in which nature catches up, a term I refer to later and in previous books called ‘genetic culmination’. The process is simple, we are a genetically programmed species to contribute to the life-preserving functions of the planet, but when we don’t acquiesce then nature will flex its muscles and alter the structures in place that threatens this billions-year old lady. This phenomenon happens on both the physical and metaphysical levels of awareness so that not only will our behaviour patterns have to change but also the way we think. Psychologically any resistance to genetic culmination will cause its own reflex in the human brain, and this has been the prevailing problem of human structures including its social orders, resource management, power delegation, and institutional development that seek to preserve the status quo. Our misconception in this modern day by those who feel that religion or God has been the root of human problems for its wars and economic failures is a total delusion. All institutions have sought to preserve human culture albeit some may be going the wrong way about it. If such human endeavours are not focused on working with nature then genetic culmination will always be an extreme event. The root of the problem is much more intrinsic; it is the human will per se. People and empires still come to power but ultimately all will collapse if we are not reading the signs in the environment which, quite often, requires a form of sacrifice. This is the age I feel we are living in now.

Having averted a 3rd-World War we are now instead at war with nature. Not having learned of the scarcity of resources but only to compound that effect further through the use of ever-more ingenious technologies does not do away with the problem – THE ALIENATION OF HUMANITY. Man’s disaggregation from nature gives rise to one of those most powerful concepts in the history of the human mind – THE APOCALYSPE. Moulded and coloured by different interpretations one is entitled to speculate on its nature. Ultimately though it is premised on one thing only – the continued unconscious process of evolution that allows all species to adapt in life and death for the greater good. The apocalyspse in popular imagery has always been regarded as the scourge of humanity. To me it represents the Big One, a genetic culmination due in course to the threat of the very integrity of life on the planet. And yet the individualist quest at the expense of the collective continues to seek technological answers that look further afield. This ‘new’ field is outer space, with current talks from the Americans and the Chinese looking to mine the moon’s resources. Our higher ethics must be in place if we are to learn from the mistakes on our own planet. Nature is taking us there by default, if only our conscious will would adapt. But because of this alienation into outer space it already seems increasingly unlikely that humanity will learn from its own death if he succeeds to continue at the point from which he left off. Now is the time to implement those greater ethics, once the domain of religious institutions, in which it requires a new form of government that is “passive” to say the least. If we are to learn to live as a community respecting every other life-form, including all its micro-organismic chemistry, then we have the perfect playing field. For once we have a ‘lifeless’ planet in which we can create the perfect environment (sic). We have the means to create a ‘utopia’ based upon conscious will and determination to limit the type of life forms we want to live next to. For once, humanity can be the alien it has always denied itself to be. But for people like me who will continue to live on the Earth, here we learn how to evolve passively. This is my apocalypse, the Great Death, the moment my consciousness aligns with a ‘faraway celestial plane’. It is no dystopia if I step out of a humano-centred alienated domain and instead marry with my perfect consort, Mother Nature.

The lamb must sleep with the lion. The message goes out deep to my readers and those who are included in this book. You should show no fear of losing integrity to one who is produced for nature by nature. That is how I portray myself, not perfect, but reaching those levels of consciousness that make for a perfect environment. I hope to bring the sacrificial lamb up to the dais of God and offer it in truth so that your children will benefit. It will demand that those that are corrupted amongst you, corrupted in spirit and honour, actually fiind in yourselves the strength to carry this truth as now you are the witnesses of a revolution in human culture. We have a great opportunity but it entails that you sacrifice yourselves for a greater cause. It means coming to terms with your own human failures and doing this for your children. Not all of you, but many mentioned in this book should give vindication to the light in my language and the facts I hereby present for the judgement of this human race. Work with nature, not against it and you may find that the lion’s belly is already full; it just means being a bit more conscious of your other side, the unconscious.

Act3 Scene 11 The high priest is engaged in a conversation with the emperor of Rome. HP: But your Worship, this man is a Jew. We know that now. Why are you, without meaning to contradict your argument, protecting him? These peoples can be some of the bloodiest we have known. They use guerrilla tactics on their homeland and send out spies everywhere to generate unrest. They are not content to make peace with us. E: He is holy, and if you knew the value of your own words you would know that they are an evolved race. In their history they have suffered torment after torment. But for that they have recorded a history showing them to be a people that will not disappear overnight. They have spread to many distant lands, especially in the north. It would be conducive to use their knowledge of the landscape and win over their affection. HP: With due regard I doubt that a bloodthirsty nation could ever make peace with our politics. E: And you would know this, for it seems you dabble in political affairs more than your religious duties, which at times appears no more than tokenism. HP: Well, you must not forget that I myself have come from a line of sacerdotal... E; One that succumbed to the whims of the senate for too many years. You are now my personal advisor, that is given. But in matters of holiness I have detected in this one man a presence. It is something I envy in a strange way, the peace that surrounds him and yet the presence is ever there to turn the eye of the most powerful. To exchange my position with such a man is an impossible dream, for I am born into this splendour we call Rome. How could I fail my people who live to see it rise? Nevertheless, I feel that this man is close to God so much so that he walks with a veil of protection around him. You are my personal advisor Barrachius and I enjoy your company. But in matters of God you fail to see how the holy is reflected in me, which is why you disdain this man. HP: But who truly is he? E: Is it something you envy? HP: No, I am in your ser... E: Do you really know the gods or do you succumb to the whims of ritual in order to satiate your personal desires? You see, the gods are here now, in me. And as I walk amongst the people taking in their love for me, they aggrandize me. I feel them in my soul, my mind responds to them. But it is not the anonymity of presence that permeates our universe, the stars. That unknown quality is for the role of gods, and the truly holy blow like the wind, ahead of the race to catch up. To have that influence is an enviable power, to know that one person could change culture. HP: So, your honour, what would you have me do in this situation? I dispatched Decius off to join the legions in the north awaiting further instruction. I have him as my personal informant who will infiltrate the Jewish communities that lie along the trade routes and further into Albion. And yet no sooner do I carry out this objective I find out that your personal guard have interrogated him for communicating with a Jew. E: It wasn’t interrogation Barrachius. I gave you instruction and needed to confuse the man as to his mission. I think I have achieved that. When you can observe the subtleties of power relations you will notice that at the centre of all of it are individuals not unlike myself. The people choose to worship me because I am benign. I bring them fortune and wealth. They enjoy, even revel in the increase of commerce, the gladiatorial sports, the horse racing, the libraries, the gymnasiums and so on. From being simple folk of the land they now have greater responsibility, and they understand that building cities for

1 Taken from my play ‘The Lost Chronicles of Jesus’ (Unedited and incomplete) available at SLP’s website as a free download. them that bring in clean water, protection from bandits, freedom of choice, democracy, is a gift from the gods. I am their god’s voice and they respect that. But along comes the ascetic, the philosopher, the Stoic, the Sophist, the seer, the visionary, the prophet, the messiah, the wandering Jew, and everything gets turned upside down. Why?

The Emperor paused in his speech and looked at Barrachius directly in the eye.

E: Barrachius, why is it that you do not draw this same support, or influence amongst the people? HP: It is because I serve you my Honour. I am your functionary. E: Correct Barrachius. I am not unknown to you, but to the people I am. They keep their distance and I revel in their awe, give them the material things in life. I replace the created order, nature. Even the Senate must keep their distance if I am to receive their gratitude. But the holy man walks amongst the people and plays music. He draws listeners including myself because it intrigues me. It is like he sucks in the Unknown and creates his own likeness in it. Decius likewise was drawn to this man. There seems to be a whole social structure connected to his presence. Ask the question why Decius was chosen amongst all the other hastati to fulfil this duty. Is it because he speaks the Jewish language? Hardly. We don’t need spies to go amongst these communities Barrachius. They desert to our cause already. We are winning this war, this Empire. The world is our oyster and we draw every holy man into our cities. Their influence will fail when they stick out their hand and grasp at the new wealth in this world. Our cities will grow on their corruption, but we cannot do it without them in the first place. We must draw them in, draw their social influence of the masses, and with it their common folk. This is how we build empires, gain citizens. We give them new laws to replace the old ones. With ius Latinum we will have achieved the real power of the holy, to have nature in the palms of our hands. HP: So what of Decius? E: He has been chosen by some divine right to fulfil a social task. It could be that he will lead us back to the Jewish nation. I feel that the insurrection is imminent there, in their homeland, and somehow this holy man has a major part to play in it. HP: But your Honour, who is he? Another wandering Jew? E: It is not for you to know these things. But continue to observe these matters and we might learn something of the gods ourselves. The persistence of their solitary god would suggest that we are dealing with a time of great change. HP: Must we play folly with them? E: What is it that you know about them that you so disdain Barrachius? I ask the question: How have they persisted with such tenacity, enslaved by one people after another, finding favour with the Persians? HP: Theirs is the god of arrogance, of poverty, of discrimination. How can you grant that their holy men will have any influence upon the Empire? Their beliefs exclude any comprehension of democracy. At least we give the common folk the incentive to rise in society. E: Yes Barrachius, with bribes and honour. We are all aware of how we have risen in rank through favour aren’t we? But you are not listening. I said that the holy are necessary to win over the masses, and I just don’t see it in you. Any nation that has lasted this long, who take their beginnings in a line of prophets, create a history longer than your arm, is not to be dismissed easily. What I want to know is whether these Jews have become more attractive to the peasantry. Find out if they have called themselves by other names, as I say they spread news of a change of times. HP: Even this far west? E: Yes, most definitely. They are an infectious people. We must not discount their one god even if they are arrogant. But appealing to the peasantry and the slave classes is a long-term threat that could escalate at any time in the future. Their poverty is their richness, their frugality their common cause. It is no wonder they believe themselves to be a chosen people. We have their monarchy, you have no fear there Barrachius. They have succumbed to our material wealth, and even now we build them another temple to match the grandeur of their historic past when they had a king. HP: And you intend to be their king your Honour. E: Not at all, for we have given them a client to fulfil that role. He happily sits on the Jewish throne reaping the hatred of his own people for we have drawn his soul into our imperial glove. It is not for me to heap upon myself the hatred of a warring nation, one that wars against the world. No, what I have intended for a while now is to give them a true king, one that they despise for his authenticity, for his holiness, who does not clamber after material things. HP: I do not understand your Honour. E: It is not hard to imagine that amongst them is a nobility, one that we, and I mean you too Barrachius, respect. That a martyr amongst them will become a thorn in their side and will reduce the Jewish nation to a minority. HP: But when is this to happen? E: Oh Barrachius, you should do your homework for even now the Jews grasp at a messiah figure to lead them out of the Empire’s hand. We just need to watch it happen. HP: I am lost your Honour. E: Never mind Barrachius. Just keep watching and you may learn something about the gods.

Figure 5

My Confessions: A personal psychoanalytical study of the feminine and masculine nature of the spiritual and its historical juxtaposition towards the formation of movements in a milieu of patriarchy

Have you ever wondered what a woman is like without a man next to her? A ship sailing in the open sea without a wind to push her along; or does she have a desire to fill her sails albeit with a need to keep one hand on the rudder? Maybe it is her human nature, to want to have children whilst claiming undue sovereignty over them? Is a man really necessary? These musings are not speculative. The emotional instinct may be more apparent in the female, yet in a man’s world they are often misplaced by her. Ecofeminism has tried to address this issue of male predominance, a dominance that has undoubtedly come about for lack of emotional steering in the domesticated world. Men want children too, but the extreme forms of both masculism and feminism does not do justice to the future. Quite frankly the modern woman looks a mess in a chauvinistic world, and yet her response, if calculated, looks like extremism. Individuality has much to answer for here if a solution is to be sought. Banding lots of women together and calling for a ‘retaking of the matriarchal ancient world’ is just another disturbing phenomenon that is now permeating the spiritual countryside. A woman needs her sails filled if she is to feel valued, yes. She may argue for an inconsistent wind, yet even one blowing from the wrong direction should tell her enough that you can’t sail your ship throughout the whole year. She’d need a different boat, not necessarily a bigger one. It is not sharks they are fighting against but their inner desire to control a man’s world authored by men. Even if one is able to catch a different fish for a partner it is the masculine animus or logos prevalent in the individuated woman that needs to come to the forefront. The psychological evidence demonstrates this.

Jung talked about this male aspect of the female but what possibly could he be referring to? Of recent I made a return trip to Glastonbury in the west of England, noted for its spiritual aspirations and inheritance. At times I have met women there who are very much libertine, as distinct from libertarian. Going hand in hand into the White Springs completely naked appeared to me the most liberating experience I could have with someone I just encountered. The excitement was so high that I managed to maintain an erection for a full 10 minutes in the cold water measuring about 8 degrees centigrade. Only because I was used to cold water was I able to respond with my own peculiar idiosyncrasy. I reiterate this tale further into this essay. To continue, the following day I was followed into the same baths, this time by an astonishing physical beauty. The cold water may be having a shocking effect on the individual so much so that one can begin to gauge why ritual immersions have had such potent effect throughout Judeo-Christian, Hindu and worldwide pagan religions in general. It gives basis to understanding how, when the body is reduced to its pure physicality and biology, why we can let go of culture and many of the inhibitions that our emotional bodies harbour. It is a release of sorts, the kind I see frequently at my Serpentine Swimming Club in the outdoor lido of Hyde Park in central London. A mass of endorphins, dopamine and other hormones are released in the huddled centre of the changing room where naked men, women and dogs hit it off sending the whole place into a frenzy of garrulous talk. The lack of stress accompanied by smiling faces in spite of the palpable shivers is all very obvious. In this moment empathy increases, whilst the ability to listen to the naked person next to you must feel like the emotional playing field where dreams come alive. I think I would be right in saying that how we direct the emotional body is the highest prerogative of all human beings. No wonder cold water dips were used to prepare the devotee to a higher spiritual engagement; it made them receptive.

As regarding the collective unconscious Carl Jung also referred to the animus as the female soul.2 Like the male anima the personal psyche is transcended so that the unconscious has a male imprint in the woman, and vice-versa. Further, he referred to the phenomenon of the animus-inflated women as harbouring strong intellectual interest so much so as to impose and maintain a rigorous list of values.3 He also said that the animus is the deposit of all women’s ancestral experience of men, likewise referring to it as the mind or spirit. How I understand this is by way of seeing the animus/anima as unconscious equilibrators but that when it is inflated the sexuality of the person in question changes. This is an important point. How often have I met women lacking in self-confidence who, when relaxing my charge upon them, overcompensate by increasing their demands upon me to the point of abuse? How often have I met women looking for a saviour type in the opposite sex only for them to reject me after having ‘raised their spirits’? As I say, she’ll sail that

2 This differs in my understanding as I equate this more to spirit. I expound on this later and elsewhere. 3 www.carl.jung-net/animus.html ship whilst keeping one hand on the rudder also. The man’s inflated feminine anima could likewise then, as I see it, have its representation in the effeminate man who by such draws most of his creative abilities here through feeling and intuition even if want for being in a patriarchal world where reason and logos governs the collective consciousness. As part of my collective unconscious it seems I have a well-spring of inspiration which is reflected in much of my music concerning Mother Nature. But it still needs conscious expression, and that is how I find equilibrium. How long one can reside in this field is a matter of personal will. Winds do not always blow from the same direction. What I have come to understand though is that there is fine line between homosexuality in a materialistic world and spirituality, and I am of the latter camp

I am not always so well-graced. Returning to Glastonbury a year later I thought to resume a friendship a little more closely only to be stereotyped as being over-sexual. A simple massage that felt like an ungrateful manipulation of my energies turned out to be indicative of a tomboy–like attitude from a girl I learned had hung around with her brother’s friends when growing up. Having a feminine body a lot of women would kill for was an invitation to me as someone who shares similar characteristics including youthfulness. She also hides her true age, preferring men younger than her. Nevertheless, her recent texts would suggest that she was willing to consider me on the basis that the recent fling she had with a man she met after my last visit was a pattern that follows her every life, not unlike mine, short and sweet. Psychologically I was already understanding her. She wanted to keep her options open but as usual, the insecurity of her life comes out in those with less control over their emotions. From what I later understood, her fleeting boyfriend, a legacy as such, engaged her too objectively with a view to a long-term relationship. The reality is probably simpler than that; she was looking for an excuse to break it off so that when he mentioned the ‘marriage’ word she imploded. It’s hard to imagine such a serious discussion took place during a fleeting relationship. Hence she needed another fix, in her inflated manipulative way, and I was that. At this stage I had already withdrawn my intentions towards her and thought not to be so sexual, as sexual as a massage can be, and see whether her egoist attitude could be more giving. Insecure persons try their best to hide their inner feelings. With me though, this would almost certainly be a lost cause. I saw in her a monster, a repressed being trying to get out. Having gone up to celebrate the solstice with her from the recent communication we had, which from the outside looked very promising, this time I brought another attractive woman with me, a masseur no less. We had a fabulous two days together, eating richly and bathing naked together. Of course, Holly had another motive, as part of that inflated animus that Jung so rightly referred to, to exploit a friendship that could provide her a material fix. She lived next to a lake and saw the opportunity that members of my swimming club could hire her caravan so that she could go travelling in the summer. It is not a bad deal, but hardly practical other than for a short stay as one would have to find work in the local area to make an extended period worthwhile. In fact Louise, my swimming consort, suits that position well in Glastonbury if she wants to charge higher rates as a masseur. Nevertheless, I was not going to interfere with a potential friendship and left Holly to her own devices. The insecurity of her being meant that as soon as Louise went back home Holly was throwing at me preconditions for my continued stay, and all of a sudden I felt superfluous to events, having initially agreed to spend Christmas with her. I would be in the way in her caravan, her private space where I knew her unconscious masculine animus would rear its ugly head. If it wasn’t for the fact that she invited me to sleep with her in her bed the night before whilst Louise had the spare bed, all the time that I had already procured accommodation for us both in another friend’s home, reinforces my claim that she was manipulative in order to drag us back to her caravan with a view to being competitive. I later accused her of this competitiveness and said that it was not such a bad thing. I and Louise were deeply more spiritual and there could have been a development here also had not Holly wanted her for herself, as an aid for her calculating motivations. I suppose this is the brunt of the matter. I tend to attract materialists who on an unconscious level have a spiritual side reaching out to me, although I believe this relationship to be reciprocal in that I have an unconscious yearning for the material. So, wanting to remove myself from her caravan to enjoy the nightlife seemed to offend her predilections as she now angered in her attempts to keep me there having realised that I was accusing her of using me. I tried to respect her view and leave, but at this stage she was demanding that I stay. So I gave her what she wanted. In the meantime she made her stretching exercises and farted for the next 3 hours as if she was just one of the lads. She had no shame about it.

It is no mean point that I tend to attract materialists. They always seem to have problems and are looking for answers. Much of this insecurity is for lack of commanding the emotional field. It can be no coincidence that during the previous visit to Glastonbury I also met two older women who claimed to be shamans. They come to Glastonbury to walk their talk, but this ‘shop-window’-type shamanism only fools the window shopper. Realising that I was not receptive to their claims highlighted the extreme feminism in the movement and the materialism it brings through token rituals and gatherings. I don’t think she appreciated the point I made that you can’t buy shamanism through a bunch of courses and a set of inspirational holiday settings that hardly needs your presence. The first thing about shamanism is that there must be a communion with the landscape which only an indigene has. Indigenes can travel, as with a spiritual journey, and so explore greater landscapes. This point was vindicated when I met another woman who told me that ‘fake’ shamans were getting men to worship them as goddesses, prostrating themselves to them and kissing their feet rather than moving the whole movement forward as egalitarian. Ecofeminism, feminism per se, is materialistic all the time it is consciously trying to deal with an alienating patriarchal society head on. Yet I know that true spiritual experiences require this transcending of the psyche not as an inflated animus/anima but as the negation of gender. It is androgynous and childlike. All my encounters thus far seem to be with women who have too much contact with the material world and end up making concessions to their spirit on the basis of their insecurity and lack of emotional steering.

Of recent I have just completed the Camino de Santiago and found much the same thing happening there. For many it is a free meal and a cheap holiday as the cost of aubergues can be free or as little as 10€ per night. I found that most people don’t talk about God, let alone Christianity. The trail is also a pagan holiday. Undoubtedly though, it is seeded with loose women. This may come as a surprise, for whatever reasons you can imagine, and not just women. I remember reaching one town where I was accosted by children no more than 13 years old talking about sexual services. The influence was probably due to the truck drivers who stop over in this highway junction and who thus pay generously for their loose women, as in Spain prostitution is quite rife. Before I continue with the theme of paedophilia, as this has been a defining realisation in my life as I have inadvertently found myself mixed up in paedophile rings, what I describe is institution, ingrained and irrevocable. Having said thus, once I completed the journey I had a brief fling with a French girl who did not want to maintain contact with me. I was hugely suspicious that she was planted. Nevertheless, I managed to withhold ejaculation on this occasion and keep my beans about me. But the question remains, what is the motive?

It is no secret that I prefer young woman. For what reason, God knows, as the best models in life for me tend to be mothers whose children have grown up or are still infantile. Modern young women seemed to be screwed up for lack of being spiritual; for lack of tradition; for lack of guardianship that the State fails to provide in this age of individualism and loss of extended family values. In the past I have talked about the influence of holy persons who, always tempted by material excess, spend much of their lives dealing with demons in one form or another. The cost of materialism is to their spirituality and there seems to be a natural economy here. The dogmatic Judaeo-Christian view is that women are not as intelligently evolved as man, especially through the influence of Augustine of Hippo. Women were seen as glorified in the image of man, not in the image of God.4 Thus, subsequent early and medieval centuries saw women entering the faith denying their gender in order to find fulfilment. In comprehending this I try to equate it with my theory of Logos and how I have related to reason as an emotional development that women have not had the opportunity to develop in a patriarchal society other than through default activity. Hence without institution of their own their voice tends to become inflated. Of course, such women in society showing intellectual properties were scorned upon. Woman not tied to marriage were probably considered a threat, as the witch hunts prove. Where this situation must have developed from a gender bias in antiquity, institutionalised through thousands of years of behaviour, there is no reason today to assume that women cannot be equal in the political, social and economic spheres. Of course, spiritually and religiously there are still major developments going on, one of which I am trying to address in this essay. But if women are to make headway in a patriarchal world then extreme forms of feminism are to be expected if uninvited. The solution really is an individual one as really the default voice of reaction cannot keep up with the continued development of patriarchy. Women are now beginning to make headway in the media and it will only be a matter of time before Hollywood embraces equal opportunities, not unlike the pop world which also went through, and still does, this transition of sexual exploitation. However, it will never disappear entirely.

My theories state that logos may have been the domain of men, recreating nature in his own image. The women who have been there in the past have probably found themselves outcompeted and victimised for it. Hence the way forward surely is not to recreate nature in a woman’s image but one in which we have to see the failings of man to steward the Earth. It seems a double-negative to continue where men left off. If we can accept that humanity, in recreating nature in his own image, is the true alien on this planet, then the way back is not to worship the Earth as our antediluvian ancestors have been mistakenly perceived of doing, but to see it as an individualists’ paradise. A natural communion existed in this lost paradise only as much as you will believe that we evolved from animals in smaller more intimate communities. Global stewardship allows a higher intelligence only when we make a collective effort to live together in harmony by designing human settlements in alignment with natural principles and not by default. This was the role of early religion. There are eco-movements making headway here, but many exclude the spiritual in preference to a materialistic lifestyle. Such said, how can a collective consciousness find any real balance if we are to deny the ‘other’ half of our gender? Patriarchal societies today continue to create harlots at the price of male elites who have lost every iota of spiritual consciousness.

4 https://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/priscilla-papers/woman-augustine-hippo

Driven by material gain we find women gladly sacrificing their masculine qualities towards feminine inventions instead, rather than seeing the androgyny of their makeup.

There is a case in question in which a former girlfriend found herself at this frontier of materialism as I battled to save her soul and keep her from the Devil’s mouth so to speak. How far I achieved that is hard to tell as I had to terminate our friendship at the end of our sexual relationship and she had not since made any attempt to contact me. One of the last things she said to me was the implication that I should pay for our meetings even though I was expressing my love all the time to her in my fondness for her company. It is for this reason that I preserved her dialogue with me as I think it is beneficial for the reader to experience what true eroticism is. I have talked about this relationship previous, but here I present a much deeper analysis.

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We had only just moved in to our new house in New Cross, the aforementioned place actually where I had returned with Kirsty for our first date. I must have been living there for 2 years as I remember living in Clapham Common before that with my real father. Now my mother was married to an Englishman and I had the small room with the slanted roof next to my parent’s. My half-brother used to come by quite often then, who was my senior and who eventually became a mentor in spiritual and musical studies. He was fully Spanish from my mother’s side, very meticulous but likewise highly-strung like her. In fact they were both obsessive personalities only that I could obviously relate better with my brother to a life in London. He struggled to fit into society as far as I can work out, and the memories of him having tempestuous arguments with my mother would precede my own relationship with her and the generation gap of an old-fashioned woman born from another country and era. I owe a lot to Tony, now gone from the scene for much of the last 30 years. My mother put out a request to the Red Cross to find him and apparently he was still alive. For legal reasons we were not allowed to talk with him, and neither did he reply to the messages left. Having him drum theosophy into my head when I was a teenager may explain something of the persona he was carrying. Whatever he had was now probably residing in me, including some of his talent. Interestingly, he became a brilliant self-taught piano player which he took up after dropping the guitar; I did the exact reverse.

I loved him more than anybody else in the family, maybe more than my mother. There may have been stuff happening between us which I don’t recall. For instance, he was into the occult. What I do remember is that around 6 or 7 years old he had me in a bedroom asking me to peel back my foreskin. I looked blank at him as I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I didn’t even obey when he told me to pull down my trousers. After about a minute my mother was approaching the door which perturbed him enough to panic him into trying to zip up my shorts again. I remember my mother asking what was going on. As far as I know that was the end of the session, and it never happened again; I don’t think I have ever talked to anyone about it, nor written about it before. I don’t feel that it affected me in any way. I have never been homosexual and never abused children. I don’t watch porn and in my late 20’s I made the decision to stop masturbating. In fact I started to keep a record of every wet dream I had looking for a metaphysical explanation for it all. My mother came to my rescue then but there were other times afterward during my obscure 20’s when I thumbed it around Europe and the USA and I seemed to come within a hair’s breadth of being sexually assaulted; something has been protecting me all these years. It gives rise to the idea that I am carrying a spiritual presence.

Could the Church have known about me? If I was being called Jesus was there an element of truth in what was being asserted, in that a strange cult following got up amongst the anarchists and the lumpenproletariat of the day? Was not Jesus a revolutionary too? Who would believe it if it were to come from any other source? But then the Theosophists also are patronised and a well-funded international organisation dealing with the occult and especially with any auspicious birthdays. You know, I used to think that the Theosophical Society were behind the surveillance and meddling in my life. Look at what they done to Krishnamurti who withdrew from the society after he rejected the mantle of New World Teacher. I’ve checked my horoscope and it is extraordinary. It has a concentration of 5 or 6 planets in one sign and a double Bishop’s Finger. I think that could be the subject of another essay. Anyhow, the unconscious presence had made its early mark upon me. I went on to study a Masters in spirituality and religion, not least I continually write around the subject today. But to reiterate, could the Vatican also have its own motives here? Throughout my whole life I feel as though something has been clandestine. If the personality breakdown in my late teens was a result of the preparation to create me in this new image it would give basis as to why relatively common folk could be persuaded to acquiesce. I was quite a simpleton after that breakdown. Setting me up with young girls could be a way of maintaining, so to speak, a clean slate of consciousness readying it for its impregnation by a spiritual force. That is what I diluted not just from the Theosophical teachings of the Blue Books of Alice Bailey which, as I say, I had preached to me by my half-brother, but readings around the occult in general. Actually, I have come up with my own theories on it, and virgin sex is a way to consolidate spiritual power on the ground. I believe this was achieved by Jesus and gives basis to the origin of the Church. In fact I have had a few ‘virgins’; some lied about their innocence, others never received my seed. Hence, if I could extend this theory to promiscuity you may begin to understand why spirituality gives way to materialism.

Sexual promiscuity in the way Kirsty wanted it makes you witless. For older men it is no more than a reflection of their position on a social ladder unable to rise further into spiritual salience. For young blood like me it would have kept me in the fringe milieu of punk ambience and a low-life influence had I engaged in regular sex during my obscure years. Instead I wanted to evolve and in doing so developed a genius creativity that explored the very essence of these phenomena. And it seems I am motivated unconsciously. But with conscious development every thin attempt to stage a meeting with a virgin implodes, and I say this in the context of the involvement of a 3rd party of sorts. I now have it in my head that no such meeting could take place and succeed unless it has my cooperation. And only then would it be a crucifixion, the incarnation of the Word. Just ask Jesus. It is the sacrifice of God’s favourite son to bring the Kingdom of God to Earth.

I will have to continue to revisit the subject again such that I may have already baffled you. Take for instance the Jerusalem Church. As an historical analogy could it have been in league with Rome and the emperor’s own motives to institute an imperial religion that Judaism failed to live up to? Would Jesus have ever acquiesced to such a development? However, what makes this more obscure is that I believe such a decision can only happen as an unconscious motivation, in other words, a sacrifice occurring by default. So no, there would be no collaboration here, rather an unspoken agreement. How else could the Church have survived such odds? This is an extreme position. It is what happens in culture per se, what I have been accusing the masses of for years, being unconscious to the effects of their environment to supersede the human will. But as Jesus said himself:

Mark 8:31 King James Version (KJV) 31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the el- ders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark 10:32-34 32 And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, 33 Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: 34 And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again. In fact, the intuition that Jesus had the foresight to reveal is an indication of his developed logos, which on the level of his unconscious is realised as prophecy. This is how I came to understand why I had to suffer. And that is exactly what happened to me in my personality breakdown which took me years to recover from. In that time my poetry and songs reflected a language that still has salience today. Here is an example: The Book of Merlyn

I choose the time when I will depart This reincarnation I am Merlyn, magician and keeper Of the mysteries

I conquered the Sphinx, my music will express The end of the age of ignorance is nigh, For I delivered the Eight

I am becoming the water-carrier In spirit And the regulating lion in matter I also honour the bull And the scorpion Now that my divinity crosses over Into the mundane

You know my kind of people, Pre-cataclysmic Struck by the Rock and the impounding Sea One of the last to remain, I needs relive history From the dawning of evolution I deliver A message of salvation

An island of a sea fort whence The gods were contained Like a genie in a bottle Shining a fluorescent glow

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Nevertheless I rose from the mire and had a rebirth, highlighted in my other books. The experience has allowed me to learn to discriminate. As I get older I detect with greater intuition any conscious interference towards me, and that I am actively making it incredibly difficult for any such event to succeed again, almost as if I am in a state of waiting for a miracle. The question may have been once: How do I fulfil my destiny? But the simple answer is that I have already achieved it. Prophecy transcends time and space, in the same manner that Jesus needed to fulfil the Old Testament. By ascending in my own logos I realised the cyclical nature of spirit acting on matter giving resolution to my destiny. And by destiny I mean the conscious will of the people, for any type of destiny must be a social phenomenon. It is the social consciousness acting on the individual that impregnates one with the unconscious programming that the individual obeys. The realm of gods and heroes is the collective unconsciousness that I would come to personally interpret as the backdrop for my actions. I would consciously fill this role, only that it is not a matter for me to choose willy-nilly which archetype I would prefer, but that there is an unconscious process in which the masses project this desire, a niche if you like, and that the rise of leaders, despots, saviours, revolutionaries, and the rest have this collective unconsciousness behind them. This gives real credence to the existence of spiritual entities but it requires that the individual acknowledges them in a personal sacrifice to culture; else destiny is not consciously fulfilled and acknowledged by the masses. In effect, destiny is all our individual unconscious behaviours acting like a great soup and the more mixed in you are the less likely you are to be recognized. But there are definite flavours to this soup and these I can analogize to with the archetypes that culture is throwing up. Hence Jesus Christ the Messiah was a call by the masses to respond to this will, just as I was once willing but now consciously reluctant to accept virgin sex and manifest my own destiny, but in doing so and accepting his role Jesus was sacrificed. And it was this social phenomenon that concretized his archetypal place in history as culture – the unconscious processes – that found conscious realisation.

John 3:14-15 King James Version (KJV) 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Isaiah 53:5 King James Version (KJV) 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Carry forward Psalm 22. And just before his death, Jesus also said: John 12:24-27 King James Version (KJV) 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eter- nal.

26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

How I come to interpret the soul is the social conduit that is our immediate conscious influence acting upon our unconscious. I diverge from the Christian understanding of it in which it is seen as the higher will as opposed to the instinct, cemented in the theology of the Early Church by Augustine. But as I later refer to, Augustine attributes sinful pride to the soul that gives it a measure of moral flexibility. Based upon the first official explanation of the Rule of St. Augustine in the Order of St. Augustine founded in the beginning of the fourteenth century, Augustine writes in his Confessions:

“The beautiful form of material things attracts our eyes, so we are drawn to gold, silver and the like. We are powerfully influenced by the feel of things agreeable to the touch; and each of our other senses finds some quality that appeal to it individually in the variety of material objects. The life we live here is open to temptation by reason of a certain measure and harmony between its own splendor and all these beautiful things of low degree.” 5 (Confessions II: 5.10)

As such beauty is attributed an order of descent from “moral goodness, where there is justice and prudence, intellectual goodness with the aid of the mind and intelligence, [to] sensuous and organic goodness or beauty.” (Confessions II: 6.12) The soul’s striving after beauty is a desire for God as beauty. But it is through his pride and wounded nature that the “fallen” person is tempted into imperfect parodies of God’s beauty or of beauty itself, in a sense distorting its origin. In reference to Hugo, Joshua Evans forwards the assertion that the fall can be fundamentally understood as a loss of what Aquinas calls “gratia elevans,” the elevating grace beyond simply that of human nature.6 (Hugo, St. Augustine, p58)

5 Bryan Albia, ‘Understanding The Human Body In The Light Of The Rule Of St. Augustine’, St. Vincent School of Theology, p12 found at https://www.academia.edu/38292471/UNDERSTANDING_THE_HUMAN_BODY_IN_THE_LIGHT_OF_T HE_RULE_OF_ST._AUGUSTINE 6 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., ‘Augustine’s Unfinished Work Against Julian: The Ancient and Contemporary Dispute Over Concupiscence’, p57-58 found at

In view of this it has been one of the most argued points in Catholic theological history around Augustine whether Adam and Eve partook in sexual union in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. I say this because Augustine and the Church, like myself, had an intuition regarding virgin sex considering the fact he was engaed to be married to an 11-year old. The issue revolves around original sin, connected to such acts as concupiscence whereby sex without grace derogates it into lust. It vindicates, in Augustine’s eyes, the need for God to bring humanity to perfection, without whom it is unachievable. (Hugo, St. Augustine, p59) Under the Rule of Augustine this gratia elevans is a spiritual and heavenly virtue lifting man into the realm of angels. Augustine said that evil is only avoidable through inwardly focusing on the will of the soul or mind, which is closest to God, and not on the body. Thus, the soul must struggle against the corrupting influence of the body.7

In a paper by David G. Hunter, ‘Augustine on the Body’, the evolution of Augustine’s thought is shown in the mass of literature he produced.8 In On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Book 7, Augustine affirms that the requirement of the soul is to naturally dwell in a body.9 (Gen. litt. 7.27.38) Later, in the final book, a solteriology affirming the imago Dei concludes that a disembodied human soul was incapable of enjoying this vision of God. (Gen. litt.12.35.68; trans. Taylor 1982) In this one can see the analogy with Christ and the (body of the) Church as a nautral union or marriage of sorts. He quotes Rist whereby in Letter 140, composed in 412, Augustine cites Ephesians 5: 29, “For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes it and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church.” (Rist 1994: 111) But this higher will is thwart with conflict between flesh and spirit, such as can be read in Galatians 5 and indicative in a variety of sermons, letters, and treatises during this period.

Matthew Drever, in ‘Redeeming Creation: Creatio ex nihilo and the imago Dei in Augustine’, throws more light on the subject.10 Augustine saw its changeable qualities and thus “sometimes being misshapen by vices and errors, sometimes being put into proper shape by virtues and the teachings of truth, but all within the nature it has of being soul.”11 Through the concepts of creatio ex nihilo and the imago Dei Augustine describes the emergence of the soul from its original nothingness and, in typically Aristotelian language, the dynamic telos (goal or ends) that guides its affections and attachments.12 Through the development out of his commentaries on Genesis and indirectly in De Trinitate the identity of the soul in its solteriologic emergence with Creation and the imago Dei gives basis for human existence. It is the human capacity as intellectual creatures to be deformed in sin and reformed in Christ. These themes are returned to in the later books of De Genesi ad litteram. In book 12, for example, the lower capacity of the soul (anima), what modern psychologist indirectly came to later term as unconscious behaviour that makes itself conscious, and the rational function (mens), where the divine image is located, is the gulf I later equate to in the language of Emma Jung13 between the power to will and the intellection of the higher logos, the latter of which I interestingly accord to the creative element in the feminine and the meaning or thinking element in the masculine (Cf. Emma Jung, animus and anima) but which Augustine identifies whence humanity is fallen from. David Hunter explains this as a pride of the soul that Augustine considered in https://www.academia.edu/37642485/Dissertation_on_Augustine_concupiscence_and_embodiment_in_the_op us_imperfectum_Against_Julian 7 Bryan Albia, op. cit., p15 8 David G. Hunter, ‘Augustine on the Body’ in The Blackwell Companion to Augustine. Edited by Mark Vessey. Oxford: Blackwell, 2012, pp 353-364 found at https://www.academia.edu/people/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=David+G.+Hunter%2C+%E2%80%98Augu stine+on+the+Body%E2%80%99 9 Ibid., p356 10 Matthew Drever, ‘Redeeming Creation: Creatio ex nihilo and the imago Dei in Augustine’, an article that appears in the International Journal of Systematic Theology 15:2 (2013) 135-153, found at https://www.academia.edu/people/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Creatio+ex+nihilo+and+the+Imago+Dei+in +Augustine 11 Ibid., p4; Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 7.6.9 (CSEL 28. 205). ‘si enim quiddam incommutabile esset anima, nullo modo eius quasi materiem quaerere deberemus; nunc autem mutabilitas eius satis indicat eam interim uitiis atque fallaciis deformem reddi, formari autem uirtutibus ueritatis que doctrina, sed in sua iam natura, qua est anima’. English citations of De Genesi ad litteram can be found in Augustine, On Genesis, trans. Edmund Hill (New York: New City Press, 2002). See also, Augustine, Confessiones 4.10.15 (CCSL 27. 48-9), 6.8.13 (CCSL 27. 82-3), 11.28.37-30.40 (CCSL 27. 213-5), 13.14.15 (CCSL 27. 250). English citations of Confessiones can be found in Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 12 Ibid., pp4-6 13 Emma Jung, animus and anima: Two Essays, Spring Publication Inc., Connecticut, 1985 his earlier works to be the primal sin, a turning away from higher to lower goods, a violaton of the divine order.14 My later exegesis adds more clarity to this point and bridges any contradiction here between a modern and an ancient interpretation. Augustine was to maintain this perspective in the Confessions describing evil thus:

“I inquired what wickedness is; and I did not find a substance but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance, you O God, towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter.” (Conf. 7.16.22; trans. Chadwick 1991)

Augustine then, at the level of mens, draws on the language of Colossians 3:9-10 to argue for the renewal of the mind and a reforming of the deformed divine image away from the anima.15

It is evident then in On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis and the City of God (begun in 412), the new interpretation was of the self-absorbed man suffering as a result of the pride of his soul, a fracturing of the original unity and harmony of Creation and subsequently of body and soul, leading to its disintegration evident in human sickness, sex, and death.16 Matthew Dever affirms this and goes on to say that in both De Trinitate (in terms of nosse) and De Genesi ad litteram (in terms of agnoscere) the intimate way in which the primordial identity of the soul is woven with its salvation is via the Word of God accorded to the divine image. The soul as such “is redeemed when the divine image is restored through the Word incarnate in Christ.”17 I clarify this later as the spiritual act of pre-destination, a coming to terms with our unconscious will. Rather than the pride of knowledge from whence man “falls”, instead there is a coming-to-knowing through the evolution of the soul; rather than male power, there is visioning; rather than deed there is counsel or empathy; rather than word or judgment there is meditation or prayer; rather than meaning or thinking there is creativity. As I say, I will continually touch on these points and issues throughout this essay.

The people I surround myself with will provide the flavour for my unconscious soup. My lower soul would seem to be this social collective consciousness (anima) acting upon me in a subconscious and repressive way as the environmental stimuli that can release the archetypes to develop my higher self (mens) where the imago Dei is located. The confusion amongst Jesus’ closest devotees would have been all the more obvious as the mystery of the incarnate word was still forbidden to them. They were drawn like bees to a flower, each coming in their due time to pollinate and ultimately fructify it. Now it is possible to understand what the Establishment is and why it scorns such behaviour and will try to prevent such social phenomena from happening. In effect it is the de-spiritualisation of the mindscape that does away with the unconscious bridge and prevents real influence from happening. As low as one may consider this soul, the Church would be the first to admit that the herd are stronger when they share a common cause. All movements are fuelled by this crude instinctive energy. But the real picture also shows that instinct can have no moral basis, rather it is amoral; it doesn’t have to be evil though, just ethical. In Augustine’s eyes evil is the result of pride, the act of falling into this amoral state, whilst the likes of Julian would claim that where there is no guilt there is no sin. But Augustine asserted, only the intellectual will draws humanity closer to God. Hence I am sure Augustine would agree, that it can only be a form of self- delusion to consider sensual behaviour as the motive for good, because it often leads to default activity in human culture as a series of mishaps misdirected by any despot, leader or charlatan. And by this I mean the individual has to spiritually strike from the herd in order to realise his or her own destiny, the soul as such still married to the body dependent upon its social sustenance in the masses. The threat of individualism though, namely its materialistic forms, is always hanging, something that the Church would itself succumb to when it stepped into its imperial shoes. And the opponents of Augustine are accusative and legion for this reason. Kelly says that in denoting sexual desire as a result of the Fall he is directly attacking the sexual goodness of Creation itself.18 (Kelly, “Sexuality and Concupiscence in Augustine,” The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics vol. 3 (1983), pp95; 109-110) Brown though, would examine Augustine in his proper social context, which were the unexamined assumptions of Roman society that Augustine took for granted. For instance, traditional Roman attitudes to intercourse in marriage accompanied “the appalling insensitivity of some ancient Romans, who treated sexual passion in a wife with contempt.” (Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, New Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p392). Yet in also developing a highly sophisticated secular view of the psychological tension between reason and instinct in sexuality Augustine still has his followers. An Aristotelian and neo-Platonist at heart, the Order of Augustine consider him to have created the first modern concept of

14 David Hunter, op. cit., p357 15 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 12.7.18 (CSEL 28. 389). 16 David Hunter, op. cit., p357 17Augustine, De Trinitate 9.7.12 (CCSL 50. 303-4) found at Matthew Drever, op. cit., p26 18 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., op. cit., p29 the human will.19 They also flaunt the psychological aspects of his theories. One must bear in mind that most secular knowledge up to the time of the Christian conversion of the Roman Empire was pagan. Augustine had to confront, as much as most other forefathers in the Church, the social oppressive world and the patriarchal domination of women and slaves in general whilst wanting to deliver a message of salvation.

It has been the common accusation levelled to women in the past that they have an ‘inferior’ intelligence alongside animals and various other classes of people. And the stakes can be very high, as the means to corruption of the soul drags down more and more people in their grasping of lower goods. But what I could really be referring to is the natural landscape. The fragmentation of our ecology denudes our minds of its natural inheritance, Creatio ex (de) nihilo,20 and alienates one from nature. This may sound like a contradicition in terms, since one’s biology is the instinct that drives the unwilled urge to fornicate, but I iterate, Augustine must have been referring to the pride of egoism that fails one’s own biology and ecology when it contradicts Creation de nihilo in its original form. Power is then materialized on the ground as a conscious phenomenon, cloaked around wealthy personages and their retinue of materialistic followers, which cannot be an indication of evolution. It actively confronts the natural healing that makes humanity whole, sensual and subconscious as this may be. As such materialistic power is in perpetual contradistinction to the holy in whom their spiritual ascendancy and transcendency over carnal pleasures is confronted and tempted at every opportunity to sin. As I understand this, the higher soul (self) is the only means to salvation, and that corruption tends to follow licentious behaviour, more often than not sexual, since it opposes the natural ecology of the provident landscape. I have elsewhere referred to this as the loss of environmental cues for the procreation of the human race. It was a hot topic of Augustine to consider what it would be like to have sexual relations in the Garden of Eden. Julian though, a follower of the philosophy of Pelagius, would come to disagree with his austere views on sexual relations. Augustine, before his death, was prompted to write to Julian his unfinished response, contra Iulianum opus imperfectum. The followers of Pelagius most certainly endorsed sexual relations especially through the act of marriage. That is not to say that Augustine believed sexual marriage to be an avoidable union. Yet the Pelagians had a positive attitude, sex being a "special advantage of marriage.”21 (Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, 86) Modern commentators like Rist accuse Augustine of failing to see marriage as the procreative setting that develops marital affection.22 (John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (New York: Cambridge, 1994), 249) In fact Hugo continues this diatribe. He says that taking concupiscence out of the theological picture can sufficiently do away with the need for remedial grace.23 (Hugo, St. Augustine, 73-74) This guilt-free state has no need for detachment, poverty of spirit, or mortification of the flesh by which Hugo means ‘dying’ with Jesus on the cross. Evil is overcome by the inherent good found in natural desire, presupposing an enlightened free will, as the Pelagians maintained.

Julian saw sexual desire as the body’s sixth sense, neutral in its energy, for either good or bad.24 (Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, op. cit., 91) In this I would agree, it is amoral when seen at the subconscious level of the lower soul, the anima; it is only through intellection that morals are upheld, defined through class and upbringing. Bearing in mind the nobility and their slaves could differ widely here, and Augustine must have been in communication with both, it may go some way to explaining why Augustine has been interpreted in many ways. His literature evolves in his search for truth. Augustine needed to understand how such a sexual act could be willed and chosen:25 “The person who feels nothing at all is the most deserving in the eyes of God.” (Ibid., 93) This is contrary to the Pelagian view of not feeling shame. His “hatred of pleasure” (Ibid., 97) though, could not have been a misogynist convention but rather a need to overlook Roman attitudes to nature in general and the environment. Elsewhere I have talked about the environmental

19 Bryan Albia, op. cit., p3 20 In Latin, both prepositions can mean “of, from, out of”, so that to account for how creation is ‘from’ nothing in its new Pauline sense Augustine often uses the preposition ‘de’ rather than ‘ex’ in order to refute his Manichean background and the dualism it implicates. As Matthew Drever points out, De Natura Boni is a concise and mature critique of the Manichees in which he distinguishes between ‘ex’ and ‘de’ within the context of his exegesis of Exodus 3:14. That Creation is from God, however, does not mean it shares in God’s immutability. This is because creation is brought into existence from (‘ab/ ex’) God’s power not from (‘de’) God’s substance. Taking his cue from Genesis he modified the concept of Creation ex nihilo to mean that the human soul de nihilo merely distorts the imago Dei in its sin but can not remove it. (Matthew Drever, op. cit. pp7-8 CF.; 22-23) See the main text for more exegesis. 21 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D, op. cit., pp38-39 22 Ibid., p41 23 Ibid., p58 24 Ibid., pp38-39 25 Ibid., p26 degradation caused by the militant domination of the terrain whilst succeeding the Greeks in their unrelenting denudation of the forested landscape.26 It was typical for a Roman male to feel nothing towards creatures ‘less’ evolved than them. But in trying to humanize the Christ, the incarnate word and means to salvation, through the imago Dei and creatio de nihilo, Joshua Evans firmly places Augustine’s theory of evil sexual desire precisely in the body itself because, as I say, it is vindicated by the Romans who scorned upon female sexual passion.27 This view could not be espoused by Julian et al because to experience emotions in total harmony with one’s will was seen, if anything, as inhuman by.28 For Augustine, he wanted to relate the Jesus in Christ whose perfected soul was in alignment with the imago Dei and whose emotions were in total union. Augustine had acknowledged Julian, in Letter 186, 1, in his reference to free will as grace; Julian understood this as the will to do good.29 Joshua Evans quotes Bonner here in suggesting that:

“the fundamental difference between Pelagian and Augustinian theology turns upon the notion of the will. For the Pelagian, God has endowed, and continues to endow, every human being with free will and the capacity to exercise it. For Augustine, God endowed humanity, in the person of Adam, with free will and the capacity to exercise it; but this capacity was voluntarily lost through the Fall and is restored only through God’s intervention”.30 (Bonner, Freedom and Necessity, 72).

It leads to the problem of whether sexual union could have existed in the Garden of Eden, and if so how? Joshua Evans shows that Augustine’s final position in the c. Iul. imp. is fundamentally ambivalent due to tensions in Augustine’s account of bodily desire.31 In this Augustine is asserting that sexual desire after the Fall is defective in comparison to what it would have been in Eden.

How I subjectively understand this may throw greater light on the subject in hand. If my intuition serves me correct, Augustine’s own intuition developed during a period of celibacy and would indicate to him that nocturnal emissions are an emptying of the soul, an unconscious movement if you like from mens to the anima as a result of man’s “fallen” inheritance. This experience can only be animal-like, rooted in the biological functions of the body. The commentators on the other hand, the vast majority ignorant of these sexual cycles, would probably come to understand it as purely instinctive like with the passions. But humans have this capacity to reprogram the biological self, not out of pride but out of want of beauty, as Augustine alludes to: the civitate Dei XIV.24 states that, in the manner that humans can willfully twitch their ears or scrunch the scalp, to use the mouth and throat contrary to its normal biological function such as to imitate human and animal voices, even to depress one’s breathing so as to appear dead, or control one’s flatulations, suggests to Augustine that Adam and Eve could also have controlled their genital organs “without any lust”. (civ. Dei XIV.24 [626-627])32 Michel Foucault observes that,

“In Paradise, man did not know of the spasmodic and degrading sexual excitement because here was a natural and real state… after this involuntary bodily excitement became a rebellion against man’s originally free and human will, since it became a sign of man’s rebellion against God.”33

Joshua M. Evans surmises that the loss of such control after the Fall would suggest something has gone wrong, in particular, with the human sexual response. But this obfuscates the real situation. Nocturnal omissions can only be unconsciously-motivated as a natural phenomenon; they are the stuff of dreams. As such I further the cause that for me it

26 Merlyn Peter, ‘Christianity, science and technology as indicators of humanity’s changing relationship with its environment’ (Revised and extended essay), available as SLP’s website 27 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D, op. cit., p38 28 Ibid., p70 29 Ibid., FN.30, p85 30 Ibid., FN.28, p85 31 Ibid., p12 32 Ibid., p85 33 Sverre Raffnsøe, Marius Gudmand-Hoyer, Morten S Thaning, Michel Foucault: A Research Companion, Springer, Aug 31, 2016 found at https://books.google.es/books?id=kDrvCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT462&lpg=PT462&dq=civitate+Dei+XIV.24&sour ce=bl&ots=LxHfaHzatc&sig=ACfU3U1H1JXduV5hD4pQvpHf7uYVEdA6uA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKE wiDrPyoubblAhVBXRoKHStwAtQQ6AEwA3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=civitate%20Dei%20XIV.24&f=fa lse could allude to a moment where the biological cycle could allow for perfect sex. Something so unconsciously willed could refer to a virginal condition not of the lower soul but, as Julian may have argued, from an animal-like instinctive union that is creatio de nihilo; it does away with the soul altogether and really does emphasize freedom. Undoutedly though the influence of female companionship must arrogate a desire to copulate, hence the gender divisions that austere religious movements continue to perpetuate. The disappointment of a nocturnal emission is always a feeling or potential of something that is lost from human culture, the modus operandi that ultimately defines one’s morals. When experienced as an emptying of the soul it refers to the pride that Augustine understood as being hurt. On the other hand Julianism appears to indicate libertarianism or libertine at worst, here interpreted as freedom from moral guilt. It may even be interpreted as a feminist convention towards the liberation of the female; as such its popularity was more an affront against Roman society than the Church. Hence Augustine appears correct to note concupiscence as the pride’s craving after passions, indirectly through the social reprogramming of the instinct. And this I must attribute to culture per se and the gender division it defines. But where Julianism appears to drift back towards the lower soul and the instinctive body in avoidance of cultural moral programming, Augustine on the other hand ascetically drew ever more closer to God and the imago Dei through the transcendence of culture. In this he sought to evolve culture as an individual rather than, in my own terms of understanding, to simply develop it as a philosophical system. And of course he achieved this which is why he succeeded in his discourse over Julian in his religious exegesis. Paul Johnson quotes him saying, ‘I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress by writing.’34 Let me say though, that my own personal interpretation and intuition allows me to properly place sexual relations in its gender context as distinct from its androgynous one. The androgynous sentiment is, I believe, what Augustine was striving to define but could not see beyond the gender division of Adam and Eve.

There are wider modern perspectives that would throw more light on this but let me say, materialism per se self- domesticates the individual through the availability of resources; the rich will obviously value society in different ways to the poor. Hence, in Augustine’s illustrious attempt to humanize the Garden of Eden, his solteriology moves away from the kind of “‘angelic’” reading of the garden offered by someone like Gregory of Nyssa and even of human perfectibility.35 Instead, Christ is depicted as the highest form that the incarnate word represents in order to reverse the fallenness of sinful man and restore Adam to bodily union with his higher soul, from whom man is descended. In this the Christ verily feels emotions perfectly willed and chosen integrated into the broader context of his salvitic life, not least society as a whole.36 Psychologically, androgyny as a merging of both our feminine and masculine attributes is where man needs to return to but I have yet to define how such a society could function.

And this aligns with my theories around the nature of the Apocalypse, in its religious context. And by this I mean the salvation of man through his death and resurrection. As I have hitherto consistently referred to, the alienation of man is now the means by which the Apocalypse descends into the material realm through the use of science and technology, the defining features of the de-spiritulised landscape. The self-delusion perpetuated by man is that they provide a platform for the release of humanity of the toils of nature, hence playing God. But this has been at the expense of our environmental ethics which in the main lack creatio de nihilo. Ultimately, we have over-populated the landscape by redefining its ecology, by ignoring the mythological context of our ancestry. And in the process human culture per se continues its unconscious relentless task in which everything we see happening on the ground indicates the default nature of humanity to open up space and time, almost like a chasm for want of an analogy, in its quest for domination. The result of this is a shrinking cake that the materialistic world is grasping over. But in reality, the archetypal destiny of the individual (as a conscious will of the masses crying out for leadership) is an unconscious process that cannot be halted; the destruction of nature necessitates a salvitic response which can only be spiritual. And so the Apocalypse takes on an uncontrolled human form. It remains unconscious in this respect rather than being the state of transcendence when it is consciously brought to individual realisation. But this is the prerogative of all prophets and visionaries like Augustine, myself included. For me it becomes the solteriologic quest of the individual reflected in the life of Christ.

Theologically, this was articulated by the founding fathers of Christianity except that it has been contested over millennia the exact meaning of the scriptures. Augustine wanted to show that the human body had the capacity of intellection and volition, to engage time as a reflection of the past and a projection of the future, whilst living in the present required the comprehension of realities that can be sensed physically through experience and metaphysically as abstract truths.37

34 Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, Penguin Books, (London, 1990), p113 35 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., op. cit., p47 36 Ibid., p62 37 Bryan Albia, op. cit., pp8-9

Having dominion over the natural world necessitated comprehending the imago Dei since humans are born with the image and likeness of God. This communion requires being loved into life by an Infinite Being for all eternity. Society provides the platform to perfect that life with God through the higher logos, spiritually as eternal destiny, whilst his fallen nature is a less perfect reflection of the Creator. (Augustine’s World, p5. Cf. Sermon 265) In an interesting essay by Teri Merrick she expresses concern over the doctrine of the imago Dei developed in De Trinitate as presenting human nature as essentially hierarchical and unambiguously gendered.38 In fact androgyny (having both male and female characteristics) has never been an unfamiliar phenomenon; Augustine, she conjectures, is the only patristic writer who explicitly refers to “so-called Hermaphrodites…, creatures born so like both a man and a woman that no one is sure from which sex the name should be taken.” (Augustine, City of God, trans. Gerald Walsh, S.J. and Grace Monohan, O.S.U. (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1952) Bk. XVI, Chp. 8, 503) If I take a mythological perspective I could say that Eve, born from the rib of Adam, emphasizes the androgynous qualities of the Garden of Eden, and maybe we should be looking at this psychologically, since both the conscious and unconscious aspects of a person make up their true personality.39

Genesis 2:21-22 King James Version (KJV) 21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Now, I am fond of using the KJV of the Bible40, but this was originally a Hebrew text. Now look at the following version.

Bereshis 2:21-22 Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) 21 And Hashem Elohim caused a tardemah (deep sleep) to fall upon the adam, and he slept; and He took from one of his tzalelot (sides, ribs), and closed up the basar in the place thereof;

22 And the tzela (rib), which Hashem Elohim had taken from the adam, made He an isha, and brought her unto the adam.

The tzalelot also refers to the side of Adam, which is all quite intriguing. The word appears three times in the Bible. The aforementioned first in which man is granted a bride, the second when God makes a blood covenant with Abram in Genesis 15:12.

Genesis 15 King James Version (KJV) 15 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

2 And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels (body) shall be thine heir.

38 Teri Merrick, ‘Can Augustine welcome intersexed bodies into heaven?’, pp1-3 found at https://www.academia.edu/39878126/Can_Augustine_welcome_intersex_bodies_into_heaven 39 According to the Gen 2:21, Eve was created by God (Yahweh) by taking her from the rib of Adam, to be Adam's companion. CF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve 40 Available at https://www.biblegateway.com/

12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great dark- ness fell upon him. 13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

From Adam then was pulled a bride as was an heir from Abram. Again, this is reflected in a great darkness akin to a great death. The theme of sleep/death was also very prominent in the New Testament, at times the words were wholly interchangeable with each other.41 In the final instance it is used again in the story of David smiting his enemies.

1 Samuel 26 King James Version (KJV) 9 And David said to Abishai, Destroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against the LORD's anointed, and be guiltless?

10 David said furthermore, As the LORD liveth, the LORD shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into battle, and perish.

11 The LORD forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the LORD's anointed: but, I pray thee, take thou now the spear that is at his bolster, and the cruse of water, and let us go. 12 So David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul's bolster; and they gat them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither awaked: for they were all asleep; because a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen upon them.

The themes here are very striking. The question to ask is whether they are metaphorical representations of androgyny. Taking the spear, an analogy for his male gender piece, to render Saul harmless equivocates with this notion that an ante- dilupian race distinctly emerged from the Fall showing both male and female characteristics. There have been linguistic studies on this word tzela or ‘rib’. Ziony Zevit, a professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages at the American Jewish University in California, posed the issue whether the word was meant to present Adam's Penis Bone which other mamals like dogs, whales and raccoons have, but is now lost in humans.42 Even though this theory has been linguistically refuted, he references its numerous use in the Bible in which nowhere else does it mean rib – except in Gen- esis 2. Also meaning the side room of a building, or the side of an object, Ziony stipulates that in ancient times it also referred to protruding limbs from the body: hands, legs and penis. Metaphorically too, the use of the word tardemah above in Samuel represents ‘giving life’, symbolically represented by a cruse or earthenware pot of water. It was Ziony’s argument that ribs are not related to giving life, while penises are. But in categorically refuting this hypothesis, Elon Gi- lad asserts that the word tzela has cognates meaning ‘rib’ in practically every ancient Semitic language and so can only mean ‘rib’43

The script could be interpreted as acknowledging androgyny as a familiar trait of ancient peoples. It may have been recognised then in the manner that children do not develop gender roles until much later in infancy, in effect depicting a culture beyond patriarchy. A great death or sleep is a psychological reference to the unconscious. In each of these cases the protagonists have all been male, suggesting that the life-giving process emerges from the feminine side of one’s persona via a great darkness. Seen in another light, even if modern science gives weight to the existence of genetic, hormonal and morphological variations that mystifies any single analysis for determining biological sex, and which can

41 CF. the stories of Lazarus in John 11 and the 12-year old girl in Luke 8. 42 Ziony Zevit, ‘Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?’ in the September/October 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. CF. ‘The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where?’ found at https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/the-adam-and-eve-story-eve- came-from-where/ 43 Elon Gilad, ‘Why God Didn't Use Adam's Penis Bone to Make Eve’ found at https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/god-didn-t-use-adam-s-penis-bone-to-make-eve-1.5383262 classify one as genetically male, but phenotypically female,44 even also of the estranged existence of men giving birth to babies, Augustine in the face of Roman convention came at a time when most science was still in the hands of pagans who would believe in a variety of gods and heroes; the idea of a monotheistic single God was an unnecessary deviation for many writers. But for Augustine under the early influence of the Neo-platonists Plotinus and Porphyry the emphasis on the Light of the lord stretching into space is taken from the concept of emanation - how things are given or originate from the One. (A. Hilary Armstrong. Plotinian and Christian Studies, (Variorum, Reprints, 1979), II, pp61-62. XI, pp.9) It is then subsequently informed by Pauline language such as aforementioned in Colossians 3:9-10.

“Just as after man’s fall into sin he is being renewed in the recognition of God [in agnitione Dei] according to the image of him who created him, so too it was in that recognition that he was created, before he grew old in crime, so that he might again be renewed, rejuvenated in the same recognition.”45

Matthew Drever points out that where Augustine associates human existence with de nihilo, from the “substance” of nihil meaning “from nothing at all,” he negates anything other than God as the source of stability and identity for his dependency.46 In other words he is indirectly referring to the bridge to the unconscious. As such humans do not have a substantial nature to stabilize their existence in the way God does. God is immutable but humans are changeable giving way to the idea that the soul is incomplete (informis) yet not inherently sinful.47 Nevertheless it succumbs to evil all too easily into instability. It opens the way for the soul to rebel against God without undermining divine goodness or immutability, moving it in the direction of a Pauline sin-grace model in which Eve is now manifest as an earthly being with all her temptations. Once unconsciously motivated and androgynous as I propose, such a mutable soul would have recognized its original identity as an extension of the imago Dei, but now according to itself either God’s goodness or a rebellion against it.48 The life-living processes associated with the unconscious, or the Great Death played out by Jesus Christ in the Resurrection theology, urges one to celibacy and the psychological cultivation and priming of our hidden mental sides. Drever seems to vindicate this, Augustine’s play on words, heavily neo-Platonic to say the least, includes the concept of the soul stretching in time as might we understand the universe to be in terms of light from darkness and the emanation of stars; the immortality of perfection created in God’s image or the mundane sinful life of non-believers is the interplay between distentio and extentio.49 Augustine often links the terminology of distentio to a Pauline biblical framework. (O’Daly, ‘Time as Distentio’, pp. 269-71) In following Paul’s sin-grace model then, distentio animi integrates basic soteriological themes in which Christ can provide the soul unity and harmony.50

In a paper by Paul Harrison entitled ‘St. Augustine’s Anguish’ he explains that Incarnatio and verbo cum factum est (‘the word became flesh’) serves as a conduit to God and the origin of knowledge.51 In my own understanding I see this as the act of redemption, a coming-to-knowing or sapientia. I think more to the point, the soul seems to be this mutable matter that allows it to evolve into higher states, in other words towards omniscience. Previously I equated this to the social influence of the collective consciousness acting upon the individual’s collective unconscious. According to Augustine in De Natura Boni 27, de nihilo is understood as an inherited substantial relationship which humans do not have with God

44 ‘Phenotype’ refers to the observable traits, including the bodily structure, of an organism. While an organism’s genotype may establish the range of possible phenotypic traits, it does not determine which traits will be manifested. Phenotype is rather the result of a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors. In the case of androgen insensitivity, these environmental factors include how the fetus’ responds to the presence of androgen proteins. CF. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11549642; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome. Merrick states that androgen insensitivity in XY chromosomes is just one of a number of intersex conditions. It is a matter of definition that accords to the frequency of such phenomena. 45 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 3.20.32 (CSEL 28. 87). ‘sicut enim post lapsum peccati homo in agnitione dei renouatur secundum imaginem eius, qui creauit eum, ita in ipsa agnitione creatus est, antequam delicto ueterasceret, unde rursus in eadem agnitione renouaretur’, found at Matthew Drever, op. cit. p21 46 Matthew Drever, op. cit. pp10-12 47 Ibid., p15 48 Ibid., p13 49 Matthew Drever in reference to O’Daly explains this as either a scattering, say like of sheep from a pastor, or inversely a gathering. 50 Ibid., pp19-20 51 Paul Harrison, St. Augustine’s Anguish, ff. pp1-4 found at https://www.academia.edu/37112825/St._Augustines_Anguish_-_2017_.pdf since God had no need for material which he had not made himself in his omnipotence, as opposed to ex nihilo that represents a causal relation.52 I’d like to think that in the subtlety of Augustine’s understanding he was referring to the collective consciousnessness and collective unconsciousness respectively. In the latter God brings Creation into existence out of/through the unconscious and its mythic language; it does not share in God’s immutability. In the former the instinct acts sensually through the masses as a kind of substance of being. But now it becomes problematic, as Harrison points out, since Augustine insists on Jesus being human. The act of love then, between God and humans requires a bridge of sorts, a faith. One can have faith either in God, sapientia, or the world, scientia. Knowledge can either be one or the other. To act upon such knowledge is free will. It is the higher soul’s prerogative to voluntarily draw towards God through sapientia, as I say, in an act of evolution. But Harrison points out that there is a disjunction here since Christian doctrine teaches that one can only have either knowledge or free will, but can not have both simultaneously. In other words, it seems to imply that there is no free will to choose sapientia, rather one is chosen instead to follow this path in so much as equating it with the theories of predestination and faith. Augustine vindicates this issue by allowing the reclaimation of free will through the redemption of God as knowledge. It would be easier to understand free will not as an antonym of knowledge, but rather the path that moves between the lower soul in which one is anchored to the bodily passions that are inherited from the masses (de nihilo), and the imago Dei whereby one strikes from the masses as a causal relationship (ex nihilo). As one draws closer to God so the dynamic of transcending the duality of objective rational thought is dialectically played out in the individual not as scientia but sapientia and a redemptive coming-to-knowing. Harrison states that Augustine goes through great lengths to abstain God from the cause of sin i.e. the sensual body, since he created both sapientia and scientia. This was typical of Augustine’s neo-Platonic enquiry into the nature of things through his metaphysical outlook. In this I understand scientia as a result of the Fall and the materialistic embodiment of knowledge in its causal relaionship. I also draw dangerously close to the idea that God can likewise be created in man’s image. It makes Christian knowledge deeply mysterious by creating a schism between omniscience and human rationality. Harrison goes so far as to point out that Christ’s knowledge appears to be the equivalent of magic.53 In other words to be God requires an unconscious state.

In his seminal work Joshua Evans provides a balanced case as to those who have supported or rejected Augustine’s claims. He quotes Elaine Pagels on how Augustine’s sexuality completely influences his theology and hence his notions of freedom in society.54 (Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 105) For Augustine, society and the individual are incapable of “self-government”, advertently denying the individual to do good and so the State must step in to maintain order. And in this I must assume she is directing her scorn against the Church, post-Roman Empire, or it is simply an anarchic diatribe against authority in general. Yet if this had not been a contentious issue it would not have had the effect it does and did over centuries of theological intrepidation. Noonan, for example, argues that the Church would have done better to advance their theology upon the likes of John Chrysostom as a better source for its epistemological claims of marriage, precisely because Chrysostom “had no experience of concubinage, no initiation into Manichaeanism, no battle with Pelagius.”55 (Noonan, Contraception, 139) Augustine’s conclusion then, according to Pagels et al, is that no one has free will, because all are struck by the sickness of original sin. (Elaine Pagels, op. cit., 107-108 and 111-112)

Not to lose my drift, compromising the spiritual seems to bring up the old argument of good and evil in the world and the forces that defined early Christianity, especially concerning the Manichean influence and the role of Augustine, just one of its founding fathers. During the early centuries the Establishment was the Roman Empire in which the materialisation of all that was spiritual was in full swing. How to deal with an archaic religion in Palestine became one of its biggest bugbears. Its legacy of wandering holy men, and women (a topic I bring up later), was a continual thorn in the side of the materialistic elite. Emperor worship was instituted and in the process standardized much of the official religious protocol. Until its conversion to Christianity Roman religion was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, "I give that you might give."56 As a domestic religion it was highly successful and depended on correct knowledge and practice of prayer, ritual, and sacrifice, but not on faith or dogma as Christianity would become.The disparity of wealth increased to phenomenal proportions in which its fictive kinship crafted the social legacy we have today. One couldn’t rise in society without acknowledging and being supported by someone higher up. The likes of Jesus wanted to invert the patriarchal social pyramid and this was a direct threat to the Jewish aristocracy under its Roman puppetry. I believe

52 Matthew Drever, op. cit. pp7-10 53 Paul Harrison, op. cit., p4 54 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., op. cit., pp22-23 55 Ibid. p22 56 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome

Christianity only succeeded on the basis that Judaism saw an apocalyptic threat in the androgynous person of Jesus, in the wake of his miracles and magical healing. Now, what I understand is that to mitigate and subsume this threat Jesus’ seed required a virgin host, in as such evolution could continue through a physical lineage for the salvation of man to ‘fill the Earth’; genetics then was understood as the influence of the gods or God, and evolution as Creation (ex nihilo or an unconscious nurturing). Hence it does not occlude the possibility that Jesus was earmarked by Rome’s most holy who often were personal advisors to the emperor. Speculative that this sounds, he died a family man; well this is how I romanticize it. I don’t have to believe it literally, but as a truism I see the rise of civilization careering through a material universe via the grounding of spiritual power. Like I say, Jesus’ sexuality has been a thorn in the side of Christianity ever since, throwing up a variety of interpretations.

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I have romantically written of the spiritual death of Jesus and the continued life of the man who could have children. We shouldn’t discount the possibility that as much as a story the life of Jesus is there will always be elements that are truisms throughout history, and writers have played on these points for centuries; much of it is subjective and relative, so that the figure of Jesus can easily represent one’s own personal suffering. What happened after my personality breakdown is a moot point. I spent years learning new skills and knowledge. Work came and went. I hung around with young people 10 years my junior. I rarely got off with anybody and could barely maintain a relationship. The girls I did occasionally meet were all younger, promiscuous and rarely virginal. But this latter was a phase that would develop towards the end of my 20’s when I decided to head to university. And in fact I still keep in touch with Christina whom I met in Middlesex University during a summer residential course for permaculture. She was a real virgin at the time, Greek, and with her own cultural baggage coming out of ancient Athens. I eventully took her virginity when I subsequently visited her in Greece in her father’s home. But the relationship faltered as always as it seemed that an invisible force was perpetually tearing me in the solitary direction of God. She does extremely well now as an actress, married with children. Maybe that would have been my own destiny once. It was when I visited her in Athens again that I started writing my first book, Being: The Evolution of Consciousness, manifestly consummating this power on the ground. Christina’s impact upon me, archetypal to say the least, promted me to write the following song. The manner in which it expresses the hidden depths of my unconscious is apparent to see. Christina

I once took a walk through the enchanted woods With a little rabbit for keeping me company She was a beautiful, furry thing Soft and smooth, playfully arousing my symphony With a great crescendo I struck up my chord If only she’d circled it fittingly Let down, though barefaced to the moon I compensate for her warren seethingly

How must I wait for the warmth of summer meadows When the night veils a chilling message ‘Wait for the breaking water’s edge For the Lady of the Lake is in refuge’ Through up we breeze by an erected obelisk

Sucking us pass without a whisper Towards the beat of a fervent drum That draw’s a hole around a tree spire

A magic trip amongst dancing ents Lights flashing rainbow mirth Oh what joy it is to ride On the crutch of a white-haired serf My garden awaits her, The Eve of Delight Spreading a prostrate view Come into me, I am the word In which all sentences pass through

The poem is a play on words throughout in reference to some experiences we shared whilst in north London at my Enfield home. It was magical taking shortcuts across the woodland in Brent Park and coming across a midnight rave. Without a doubt though, it was a mythical union until, that is, we had sex. Those were hugely influential years in which I struggled for sheer inability to want to learn by rota. I guess that is the nature of an infantile mind. Increasingly younger girls would desire my attentions until such times as something uneasy would come between us. Remembering, I had a personality breakdown and for much of those 20’s I couldn’t relate to society or have much wit as to know what was going on. I really did have a younger mental age that seemed to reset itself around 17 years old. I suppose during those 20’s I came across paedophilia time and time again with young girls in pubs even though I was too uneducated to realise how institutionalised it was in society. I recall one person telling me I had no culture, and that probably sums it up; one side of me was devoid, the other was passively watching its development. In fact it felt like I was simultaneously conscious of both my lower and higher soul, my anima and mens in one single body, the latter of which I earlier referenced to as some sort of guiding principle. If anything I still share much of the same views I had then in terms of the age of consent. If you can’t stop young adults (who are sexually oriented) from frequenting bars, pubs and venues then the issues of any such problem need to be much more deeply addressed; a patriarchal society that represses female development isn’t going to come up with the answers. And I don’t think you can stop it anyhow, simply because it is inherited socially through the passions in what I have termed as the lower soul. It takes a spiritual act to develop the consciousness required to control one’s passions, but all the time a materialistic culture de-spiritualises the landscape young people would rather listen to their own bodies than the arm of the law. And so laws are applied to induce more fear, which only represses the individual further causing both men and women to close up even more their unconscious sides. There have been remedial measures in culture undoubtedly, allowing for instance gay marriages, equal rights at work places, and racial and immigration sanctions, but still, ultimately the problem lies in the loss of self-awareness due to the inherent level of the lower soul to act without learned discrimination. For this reason men are naturally prejudice. This is an ethical issue. It is the same problem the Church had, as Julian would argue, and I repeat, a “guilt-free state has no need for detachment, poverty of spirit, or mortification of the flesh.” (Hugo, St. Augustine, 73-74) All the time so called ‘inferior’ persons or animals respond unashamedly the strength of the masses prevails for good or for bad, and so cannot change overnight that which is inherited. As with the Church neither can materialistic cultures provide the answers for everybody especially since sexual licentiousness cuts right across the demographic board.

Bumming it around the USA also left me estranged from culture. I was always wrought with bad luck with every potential female mate who could integrate me into the greater social fabric (anima). As I say, I always had this invisible guiding principle (mens) hanging over me. Telephone numbers would go missing or I would never be on time for a date. Paranoia always lingered like a devil’s scythe over my head, readying to dismember my higher soul from my lower and all the emotional insecurity that would bring. Whilst the intellect pulled me towards the creative arts - a passive nature succumbing to its femininity and the nurturing it bequeaths, the uncontrollable male passions on the other hand saw girls as little more than sex objects. It was a tension that tore at me, chemically, biologically, and physically. Spiritually though, I didn’t have a problem. When one has no morals or an undeveloped ability to know what is right or wrong in society then whatever suffering I went through felt all instinctive. I accepted everything and just picked myself up as would an animal.

Those obscure years in New Cross mixing in the punk rock scene and meeting sixth formers from the local Aske Girls School in the pubs were the heady days of pot, pool and booze. I was physically ill much of the time but, my word, I never used to vomit. My parents had moved out of the wool shop by then where we used to live situated right next to the girls school during my teens. That was before I had my breakdown. Even then, with my younger sister attending I never got off with any of her friends; I was too unconscious, too feminine and passive in my make-up; lacking objectivity. It was only after my breakdown that I seemed to have a second bite at the cherry so to speak, and started hanging out in New Cross as if to make up for my lack of salience. I mingled well enough though with the youth even if nobody really gave a shit about me.

The obsession to remove the innocence of someone by corrupting them in the materialistic image of another can be likened to an inner jealousy to be spiritual and young at heart, and as such young people are quickly sexualised in such environments. There is a feeling of immortality about it, the drawn-down power that this evokes over the lower soul, the materialisation of the spirit, the fallingness of man. Conversely, where I was innocent in motive in which some girls had chosen me to want to lose their virginity to, and I don’t have to denote a religious cause here, advertently my angel face and young solemn countenance quickly put me in their age group even if I was much older than them. These were the festival years where I met travellers and other fringe groups, including school leavers. Young girls in such unregulated circumstances tend to lose their virginity very quickly. Some were just kids but I never fucked them, only watched them as they sought the male world. That is their playing field where they boldly tempt, as much as tease, men, not so much into paedophilia, but adolescence, if only to strive in masculine objectivity.

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Even as I write decades later I can recount the story of my recent trip to Poland on a bicycle, one of many that I have achieved. I was being sponsored by my friend Piti who owns a cocktail bar in Cambrils. For me it was the best bicycling experience I have had, supported much of the way by Piti including when I lost a wheel and needed it replacing. He wanted to create me in the image of a legend so I played the part. On returning he picked me up in Barcelona at the train station, having gone back himself there to the hospital because of a serious altercation he had in the meantime. I think maybe the text will relay it more authentically as this is the style I would like to continue here.

FACEBOOK

26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - Merlyn Peter: < > Images of the shop and bike 26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - Merlyn Peter: They forgot to charge you for the labour 26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - Merlyn Peter: Piti, I left the orange speaker you gave me in the bike shop. Shall I gift it to them? 26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - Piti: 60€ speaker yesterday siomeone stokes [someone stole] 700€ from my wallet stole was tour [your] birthday present

26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - San Merlyn: Then I will retrieve it. I'm sorry for this theft. Where was your wallet? I'm upset 26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - San Merlyn: Come on Piti talk to me You're busy I know. But this is shit. Twice now it has happened To make you feel better I am willing to make Portugal with you, me on a bike, you in the car with your kite surf You are a beautiful man. These people want to destroy beauty because they don't have it 26 JUL 2019, 13:39 - Piti: doing bank things

26 JUL 2019, 13:39 -San Merlyn: Ok, we talk later

29 JUL 2019, 13:59 - San Merlyn: < > Image of the Czech border crossing 29 JUL 2019, 15:02 - Piti: gooo

29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Piti, I am having coffee 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: < > Image of my coffee maker Big story in Vienna Tell me now you feel better. What happened? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: its hard to explain but im fine jajajajja 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: You know who took it? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: always jajajajjaja es mi aprendizage

jajajajja 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Apprentice? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: yea 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Who? The same person? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: no 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: The girl 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: things that happens 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: In the bar? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: si 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Do you have a safe box? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: too much things happening un 1 month jajajajajjaja

29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Because you collect this karma 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 – Piti: im lady man its not bad 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: So she still works for you? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 – Piti: jajjajajaja avery [every]thing has a solution no entiendo 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Have they admitted to it? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 – Piti: how she ??? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Which person? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: I dont undertand what you mean im not walking [talking] abou anyperson

29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Your lady took it 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: what ????? no 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Who is your apprentice? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: aprendizage and is life no apprentice 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - This was a telephone conversation in order to make sense of this ridiculous conversation. So I am thinking that a member of staff was behind the theft - his apprentice – but on reflection I realise that he is talking about life. The word ‘apprendizaje’ means learning. Obviously I didn’t have my dictionary at the time and equated it with a person. On this basis the context of my understanding took on a cynical note. 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Ok, you don't want to say who ?? 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Because you punish the group and they will then behave like a unit So you deduct from their wages 700€ between them Get a safe box with a combination key Learn to discriminate You don't have to carry the world on your shoulders Careful who you dance with Careful who you done [dine] with Careful who you reward 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - More of the same. 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: People must learn to work for respect 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - But it suffices in this case that talking is better than texting 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Me too I only have good words for you 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - Piti: thanks I know you are a good man in a crazy world 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - San Merlyn: Yesssss sir 29 JUL 2019, 17:02 - < > Piti posing for the sponsored shirt 30 JUL 2019, 07:45 - Piti: now I un hospital fuck this juli 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - San Merlyn: What!? 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - Piti: wating for cirugía in mandivula [Waiting for surgery in the jaw] 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - Piti: max brooks it 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - San Merlyn: I don't understand. Max what? 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - Piti: the hungarian 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - San Merlyn: Broke your jaw He hit you? 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - < > Piti pointing to his broken jaw 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - San Merlyn: Is he the thief? Or is this a separate incident? 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - Piti: saparate

30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - San Merlyn: What's changing? Why did this happen? 30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - Piti: explain you later im so tires right now dont worry

30 JUL 2019, 10:39 - San Merlyn: Big stories when I get back eh. Maybe a camera in the bar Piti. But hugs to you. I wish I could be there for you 31 JUL 2019, 15:00< > Crossing the Polish frontier 1 AUG 2019, 15:46 - San Merlyn: In Krakow. It is strange how fortunes turn. 3 punctures this morning

Whether Piti knew it or not the words ‘fuck this juli’ come back to me. At first I didn’t understand this. I wondered who Julie was. I thought he meant some girl of his. But inadvertently, or advertently as the case may be, only after finishing the journey did I realise he meant July as the Spanish crossed over into English when using the predictor text. July had been an awful month for him, having his jaw broken, being robbed of €700, and having to pay out on other things. But on returning and over a conversation in the presence of his father he started to talk about my youthfulness. He knows my age, but he also knows my true genetic age. Anyhow, when I got back, to no great acclaim, the barmaid comes on to me, maybe 21 years old. I liked her, small frame, skinny and pretty, but she did not make any sexual advances obvious, just putting her arm around me. When she went to the toilet to check over her looks just before approaching me again I realised she was targeting me. The bar was operating probably with a bit more open fun since Piti was recovering at home. Julie, as I would later learn to be her name, went round with a wooden penis attached to her head but nothing shocking in my book. Was it supposed to sexualise me? She was also the flatmate of Piti and I told her I would be going over to her house in a while. I found out only then that her name was Julie. Was this a coincidence? Piti always allowed me to sleep on his couch and tonight was no exception even if his girlfriend was in house too. Anyway, I was there to comfort him. Having closed the bar Julie came back and in my doze I remember her friend accompanying her. When I got up in the morning Julie’s door was fully open, she was laying there half naked with no knickers on and her vagina fully exposed. Her lips were luscious with make-up on but I was in total control of my sexual passions. I tried to wake her, even kiss her, and in retrospect I knew she was pretending to sleep. She turned her head away from me. I even held her hand for a little while. Did she want me to force myself upon her? Was Piti in on this? I made her a tea and left it beside her bed. Afterward she would barely exchange contact even though she was still friendly with me in the bar. I later discovered her to be bisexual. I think she met another bloke soon afterward. A few days passed by with no response to my casual texts, and besides, I had quickly lost any interest in her after that incident. It’s a strategy of mine to make it increasingly difficult for girls to re-approach me by creating the circumstances that require them to work at it. For instance, I do this by avoiding schedules or making them feel guilty. This way I protect myself from female abuse. I am aware that if a 3rd party is involved then I need to expose it.

After being 5 weeks on the road working up my spiritual creativity I suddenly had 3 quick nocturnal emissions, the last whilst sleeping in Piti’s bar overnight which I have done often enough. I was now empty of culture, as Augustine might agree on. My only inquest is whether this was all default bahaviour or had Piti really thought to gift his champion? Maybe Piti did not understand it as default behaviour, but somehow the predictor text clarifies it so. But I iterate, the phenomena of being approached by young girls appears natural much of the time albeit institutionalised and subject to want of control. It is an age-old problem in societies upholding law and order. But in those milieus where surveillance was less a possibility the “carnival man” rears its libertine head and goes on a carnal rampage. The predatory grounds of summer camps and festivals made themselves very apparent to me in my early 20’s when I decided to go to Camp America. If only I could have gone there without the suspicion of feeling censored by a close friend of one of my brother’s I may have passed the experience in solemnity. I was always at odds with paranoia though. But Mental Mickey, that’s what we used to call him, enquired into my aspirations that year and whilst not being a full-time student at the last moment got a place in the same venue as me. I talked about this in one of my previous publications. I didn’t want him there as trouble always followed him about. At one stage he organised a strike if they didn’t reinstate one of his mates who was told to leave. He won. Being parley with other volunteers on the camp I don’t doubt that the sketch cartoonist who briefly came on site had something to do with him. It wasn’t long before cartoon comics showing caricatures of young girls being fucked by huge penises were left scattered on tables, and of course the culprit was soon removed from base. Many of these girls were kids but I couldn’t relate to them as I was still recovering from the social exclusion of a personality breakdown.

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The more serious issue of child sex came much later when I was working for a cleaning agency on Camberwell New Road. They were a Nigerian firm and after a few months I negotiated a new deal with them to go self-employed. I got on well with the office staff and out of the blue, during a house party I organised, one of the women asked to marry me. I hardly knew her but it got me thinking. Of course I said ‘no’ telling her with an eerie sense of prevision that nobody would have me. At this stage in my life I could still observe from the outside this two-tier development in my soul, Augustine’s lower (anima) and higher (mens) modes of being; the more this latter developed the more I believed in predestination. As I continued to work the gardens in south London in my monthly contracts I distinctly remember one place in Peckham Rye. I still have vivid memories of it because on entering the garden someone had started landscaping it. I soon had a word with an old man there and apparently he had been proffered by a woman living in one of the above flats to work for her. He introduced me. I soon felt awkward as she subsequently introduced me to her daughter of sorts; a small girl of maybe no more than 13 years old came down to chat with me alone. I immediately smelt the cigarettes on her breadth. I was suspicious to say the least, and as with the old man I thought sex was the currency being used here. I refrained from entering into an unspoken agreement but the temptation was all pheromones coming from a sexualised child as that. I never saw them again, only the old man whom I knew had acceded to this currency. Again, one should consider what paedophilia really is. Children haven’t developed strongly enough the discrimination that age brings, whether it is learned or not, and most certainly they live in an unconscious world that represents freedom of the spirit. It’s rare for them to be able to control the projection of phantasms and if anything are the receivers of such. Hence many victims are groomed in closeted environments through unregulated electronic media, false identities, and isolation. Had it any wider acceptance in culture, say for instance in relation to child grooming in war-torn countries, arranged marriages in Middle Eastern cultures, or infanticide and slave labour in Africa or Asia, then as an ancient precedent I would be talking about indigenous milieus that are still extant in this modern day world. In terms of the ideals of the State - the quantification of human resources under regulated and controlled conditions – it becomes subversive only when it is not objectifiable. That should enlighten you as to what the State is. As I say, it is an unnatural phenomenon for the concentration of resources that brings with it a concentration of problems. But there is a real irony here. Paedophilia is institutionalised in the West albeit it is the darker side of its materialistic cultures. It has been a part of our Western upbringing since time immemorial, only now it is stigmatized and labelled under the auspices of the law. Rather than ridding itself of the problem it rather seems to be compelling it by driving it further underground in which people’s souls lose much of their moral basis. As such then, the State represents the means to dealing with an environment that wants to move the human soul in the opposite direction, in the process creating an artificial body of rules and regulations inspite of its will to do ‘good’. The repression of the instinct is culture per se, but the State is an augmented form of human culture whereby the harder it denies the instinct the greater will be its unconscious recoil. As I say, human culture needs to go beyond its artificiality if it seeks the answers to its own problems.

Man though has always sought to free itself from the bonds of this objective repression and sexual licentiousness is just one of those means. The libertarian seeks to break the bonds of culture in any which way it can, and this needs not take the form of violence whether to the physical body or the physical environment. I have talked about this in my earlier writings but already in this essay I have alluded to the real issue at heart – the conflict between the higher and lower soul. It shares the same nature as the great religious argument between Augustinianism and Julianism. In which direction do we go: shall we profess to overcome human culture through the intellection of the spirit and the laying down of God’s law, or shall we regress into dealing with the effects at hand in our materialistic and physical environment? The anarchist also claims this dichotomy of thought; some become influential writers and thinkers, others violent insurgents angry at the status quo. And yet no matter from what angle you view this issue the heart of the matter lies in the evolution of man to return back to our ecological and natural imperative, which in our religious inheritance is the reverence of God and Creation – the imago Dei and creation ex (de) nihilo. It was with this view in mind that the command to ‘fill the Earth’ comes with a mandate to likewise steward it. But this hasn’t been the case, and it should be a revelation to you to realise that excessive intellection of the spirit also brings about greater temptation into sensual indulgence if human culture can not catch up with its frontrunners and pioneers. Hence there is the need of many enlightened persons to protect themselves from over-indulgence. Individualism can thus also claim this duality of thought. Instead of being selfless and subject to the ecological and biological checks of our God-given bodies, for want of another universal word here, it has sought to change its own ecology and defy the natural checks that have been put in place by Creation. In other words individualism can be too selfish. And in this latter case its adherents perpetuate the material environment towards its own personal success, gain and self-preservation. The State undoubtedly is an exigent measure of human culture to deal with the excesses of human nature promulgated, as I say, through individualism. However, to me personally, being truly indigenous is what I feel like most of the time, never belonging to one place and being ready to respond to natural cues and changes. The “carnival man” is libertarian to say the least as are gypsies and travellers who choose to be outside the State. But what really counts here is our footprint on the planet, and so long as you respect its natural limitations without wanting to reprogram the instinct then its providence will look after you into old age. Evolution wll reciprocally take you deeper into your spirit and generate the right unconscious responses from which you learn to adapt from. It may surprise you to realise then that the inclination to abstain from sexual passions feels as natural as does the desire to return to God and Creation.

In the above personal aforementioned case then of the landscaped garden, as in other cases, I suspected foul behaviour, and my paranoia was not unfounded. It wasn’t for lack of meeting girls but rather for the impending damage rejection might cause as if a war raged on inside me between the angels of lightness and those of darkness. I was numb to culture and so always had to find my own way around it; some things just couldn’t sicken me. For instance when I had moved to Bristol I took up a bedsit in Redfield near St. George’s Park. Another man had moved in above me and soon after, I saw two young girls climbing the stairs with a lady accomplice. That evening the cries of pain issuing from one of them were being consoled by the adults. I knew the sound of sex. My mind got thinking, ‘Who was the other girl? Was she the bait for other young children?’ It turned out that my new neighbour had been a convicted paedophile, who was now on medication. The reason why I knew this is because he was found by the police wandering around on the roof of the house, I suppose in hiding, and so he admitted this to me. I didn’t know what to believe, only that I felt this was a set-up to indoctrinate me into paedophile rings. I soon moved out after getting the low-down from the landlady who had suddenly come across a load of money to get her windows replaced. I moved to St. George after that to finish off my religious degree. But Bristol would provide other circumstances too that joggle my memory. I have seen children as young as 10 years old say, being snogged by adults. We all hear about the corruption of our societies but many of us turn a blind eye to it. For instance there are police victims who are sexually abused by them; your best friend or members of your family indulging in sordid affairs; political leaders, even charities, engaging in sexual favours and trafficking; selling sex to schoolchildren for exams. It doesn’t end there. The materialisation of culture is prevalent everywhere. It festers upon spiritual individuals as a food source. As such being young also means being spiritual. The equation is quite simple, ‘sell your soul and get a name for yourself’. Even so-called spiritual literature counts everything in monetary terms nowadays. But spiritually, I believe you would have to be someone rare to be noticed, not least to provide a threat to the Establishment, to have your name banded about like mine has been and yet I remain under the protective eye of an angel. Undoubtedly many gurus get slandered and stigmatized if not for their natural power then for their un-breakability.

The persistent seeding of spiritual environments by sexual licentiousness is a factor of its libertine energy that such a libertarian milieu cultivates. The whole success of new movements may depend on the sort of free expression that is required to get people to join and have some freedom to eexpress themselves in. Everybody wants to be listened to, the reciprocal energy that moves between one is the stimulation that gets the endorphins going, which can be like a sexual experience or just the feel-good factor. A lot of addiction really comes down to these chemicals, including serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. Yet I know from personal experience that truly, creativity lies at the heart of feeling good about oneself. Like sexual energy it returns a hormonal revenue that makes one feel complete. Consider this for a moment, that what drives humanity is success. The correct definition of a hormone is to control and coordinate activity around to other parts of the body when it is secreted directly into the bloodstream. Being creative means lighting up your neurotransmitters, using parts of the body in harmony with each other, so that even if I were building a wall or structure the kick I get is when my hands and eyes work together to create the new experience towards an end product. Rarely is it the ends that define the means, rather the means are the ends, whether that is carving wood, moulding clay, or stacking rocks like some puzzle to be made. I don’t need another person for that. The natural world can provide the direct stimulus for being creative, as a child demands it. The spiritual aspect of this activity is the mind as a conduit for the unfolding of matter into sensual and creative forms, importantly though, moving towards the consummation of the spirit in which prevision allows us to feel complete. And it is here that the heart of the problem can be recognised; people get addicted through the process of creativity when it is handed externally on a plate, rather than generated internally via natural associations that fathom the collective unconscious and its retinue of mythic language, so that they become dependent upon being fed unrelated stimuli. This fragmentation in material cultures shows them to be excessive in that they concentrate affects as well as resources. The basis of this phenomenon is that creativity should be a growing experience, as would a child in his or her play pen experimenting. It is the spiritual life where spirit unfolds through the mind as an experience of neurotransmission triggering genes that turn us on. More importantly it is the way we discover this ourselves, allowing for free play to venture into scenarios that deliver us previously unknown variables. As I say, it is to have an indigenous mind-set. How quickly we get fed up with games and toys, but modern markets are always reinventing them to keep our material interest high and our pockets empty. Yet if we are saturated with ‘toys’, then we have to learn a whole load of stuff that will probably become defunct or out of date sometime in the future, so that in order to feel useful we stay on the bandwagon and take whatever cookies are coming our way, as a child would accept sweets. It regulates our lives, keeps us immature and ‘immortal’, and eventually stifles our free spirit giving rise to emotional problems. People burn out for this reason of dependency and don’t have the means to learn to grow through their own volition again. People in materialistic environments grow and age faster. A lot of them lose confidence in themselves and resort to material fixes. Instead of enjoying getting older they fear getting old.

When I came into the permaculture movement I met it halfway. I was already in my element but the philosophy opened up a play pen, as it did for most of us. It was still in its evolutionary stage, as I hope it will remain, and guided would-be teachers into a brand of ethics and principles that made sense. It mixed freely with other philosophies, including biodynamics, organics, appropriate technologies, systems thinking, anthropology, educational psychology, and so on. It is undoubtedly science-based. But many of its pioneering thinkers were libertarian to say the least. It attracted anarchists and much of the counter-culture coming out of the 70’s. A few incidents happened whilst I was an active member of the Board of Trustees, a period around the beginning of the new millennium, not least being exposed to child sexualisation at various events including committee meetings. I remember one incident where the group of us turned up at Looby’s house for a general meeting to find a 13-year old girl sweating it out on a trampoline wearing just a skimpy bikini suit. I must admit that the pheromones coming off her were quite a bit to handle and whilst Looby engaged her mother in conversation the rest of us stood by and endured this spectacle. In retrospect I felt that I was being tested, as if some plan was being hatched to break my spirit, to suck out of me the spiritual force which elsewhere I have described as being responsible for the materialistic initiation of new movements. I brought my own bedding that night since I had turned up in my van to sleep in the back of it. But I distinctly remember that the chair of the Board, Mark Warner, requested that I sleep in the house. My intuition told me that he was suspicious even though he didn’t air any further views, which would suggest that they had already got ear from a 3rd party about something. I even asked Andy Goldsworthy, the Permaculture Association (UK) main coordinator at the time, whether he had ever been approached by the police services concerning me. His answer was an affirmative ‘no’. I may consider this paranoic, if only further evidence hadn’t turned up when I was chosen to run a children’s permaculture event at Kew Gardens, and inviting Mark Warner to partner me in the teaching program, only to find out that the event was called off soon afterward. Again my intuition was informing me of 3rd-party meddling even though I had my CRB in place as I had been attempting to run children’s development programs at the Board’s events and convergences. The irony though, is that some of the festival work we done through the Association could have this same libertine atmosphere, one in which morals took the back stage and people ventured into the spirit of youth and experimentation. I certainly recall topless women serving drinks at the Green Gathering or going naked in a mud-puddling volunteer session. It isn’t just young people; old people also try to reclaim their youth by re- enacting sensual pleasures that had since been shelved. A sauna or a hot tub, for example, is a common gathering centre for such. Festivals do that and remain an integral part of growing up. In such circumstances sensual pleasures have a role to play towards the evolution of the spirit and would suggest that something needs to be healed here.

There have been so many incidents in my life that my mind boggles to recall them. One thing is for certain though, in this age of regulation and control, where wealth is to be found so one will see the institutionalisation of materialistic culture in whatever forms it wants to rear its head, and there are many. Sex will always be one of its principle tenets. My time at Coed Hills in Wales brought it home to me, as I couldn’t believe this was going on under the noses of the direct descendants of Sir Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, and Leslie Paul, founder of the Woodcraft Folk, on the domestic grounds of the head of the scout movement for South Wales. After its dynamic initiation as an arts residency which attracted huge donations and funds Coed Hills became a hippy truck stop, and with that a libertine centre for amoral sexual relations. But this was just a blip in its career, as this behaviour was stamped out and a new phase of permaculture was introduced, which is where I come in. In the course of its development its privileged background gave it a ‘blind’ permit to experiment so that anything spiritual is sucked into and reinforces its power relations if it can’t be helped. I had met a Polish family there who invited me back to their flat in London Fields. The young children were so sexualised that I understood her mother to be a very loose woman, growing up in part-squalor and without a father influence on the daughter. There were other men around too giving the impression of a sordid sex ring taking turns. And this is the crux of the matter. I now understand that the repression of a female’s masculine animus requires a dominant male to be present, and he can come in many forms. It is through the conscious projection of the male’s oppressive practice that the woman remains unconscious, unfulfilled and unevolved giving way to forms of misogyny or female subjugation in general. It succeeds because of the development of a kind of soul-force. Had the the male equivalent of his feminine anima been present then the relationship would be more egalitarian and spiritual. I consider this to be the bonding qualities that work invisibly and say something about our inherited cultural values that define who we will ultimately be attracted to. The reality though, is that some women like to remain unconscious. In this case the young girl may well have shared the same soul-force as her mother as their social circles were almost identical, although I have seen this synergy towards me in much more subdued and acceptable forms which I talk about later in reference to creatively engaging and sublimating young sexual energy. In this case the female parent in question would consciously rather than unconsciously project her animus upon me improving the daughter’s ability to learn in my presence, a kind of spiritual alchemy. But such was Iza’s own strong individuality though, and her mother’s submissive behaviour, that she almost pleaded with me not to hurt her child, suggesting that this 11 or 12 year old had been in this situation before and had developed her masculine animus to a further degree. Jung’s wife Emma wrote, “What we women have to overcome in our relation to the animus is not pride but lack of self-confidence and the resistance of inertia. For us, it is not as though we had to demean ourselves, but as if we had to lift ourselves”.57 Jung considered it a deposit of all women’s ancestral experiences of man, the spirit or mind. To put a fairer point on it, the exploitation of the female went hand in hand with slavery, child labour and animal cruelty. I raise this issue again and again when I address this factor of the female as an inferior or unevolved race.

Here I differ from how I understand the spirit to be, for which I refer to more as the instinct, even if I count the intellect as spiritually-driven. The spirit for me remains an unconscious source for motivation and power. Hence the sensual body need not encumber itself with moral rectitude if sexual relations can be considered as purely animalistic and for its own sake. That said, I would rather relate the female condition in like manner that Augustine defined his ‘fallen soul’ as opposed to Julian’s who considered it in the context of the sacramentum of marriage. The both agree that human nature has been created out of nothing (c. Iul. imp. I.94 [117]) even, as I have said, they disagree what exactly that means for human nature.58 However, I see the development of objective rational behaviour as a conscious effort to stem off the natural power relations that already exist whether they’d be biological, ecological or emotional. And again, Augustine would be referring to creatio ex(de) nihilo in its changeable or mutable state for its capacity to mutate closer in form to the imago Dei which I have hitherto likened to the androgynous state represented by Adam and Eve before the Fall. And in this I am referring to the ‘marriage’ of the conscious and the unconscious as such that only rare persons achieve in their Godhead. Nevertheless, rational behaviour is likewise responsible for the institution of patriarchy which originates in its wanton disregard of equality and the desire to quantify resources as a material for power relations; objectively it devolves into a materialistic attitude.

The conscious oppression of the woman’s spirit is an age-old phenomenon which can also arrogate institutionalised rationalised forms of behaviour that require avoiding the long arm of the law, both ethical and judicial. Over the course of human history this has seen power relations shift from superstitious to religious to political spheres. How we respond as individuals generally requires us to come together into collectives as the energy required to overcome institution is always greater as a symbiosis of relationships. It is this soul-force in which we consciously respond from, as opposed to unconsciously, as a unified voice. However, saying that does not occlude the possibility that grooming youngsters into abuse defines their reality and motivation, as seemed to be the case with Iza the aforementioned Polish girl in the company of her mother’s social sphere; she was incapable of learned discrimination at her age other than what she inherits directly. As such it is also the trap of conscious behaviour to get drawn into illicit social groups that can parasitize the individual’s spirit and make them dependent upon them. That is how institution comes about or maintains its powerful hold. Not all of it is necessarily immoral, since one’s jurisdiction might be accorded to the current acceptable political milieu they live in. For instance under-age sex may be considered a recent phenomenon which is going through great political change at the moment.

“The ages of consent vary by jurisdiction across Europe. The ages of consent are currently set between 14 and 18. The vast majority of countries set their ages in the range of 14 to 16; only three countries, Cyprus (17), Ireland (17), Turkey (18) do not fit into this pattern. The laws can also stipulate the specific activities that are permitted or differentially specify the age at which a given sex can participate.”59

57 Emma Jung, Animus and Anima, Spring Publications, Dallas, Texas, 1978, Cf. p23 found at https://www.carl-jung.net/animus.html 58 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., op. cit., p96 59 “In the 1990s, the Netherlands gained international attention due to its policies regarding the age of consent. Between 1990 and 2002 (Regulating sex: the politics of intimacy and identity – Elizabeth Bernstein, Laurie Schaffner. Retrieved 19 March 2012) the Netherlands operated what was in effect an age of consent of 12,

As such, important legal changes do happen in society that prevent institutions from continually abusing people’s rights, if barely making a dent in them sometimes. Yet it is also the case that laws have protected the wealthy and the privileged so that the status quo allows for unregulated conduct and exploitation of the masses.

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Proudhon says of the complete being to be male and the woman a diminutive of man.60 (Proudhon, Justice, 1868 edn., III, 134) He saw women as a mean term between men and the rest of the animal realm, not unlike having a slave mentality. Grounded in this religious dominant view of the 19th century, women were no more than users who revelled in man’s creations. Women could only feel, incapable of real thinking. Such inferiority was presented in terms of a ratio of 27:8. This attitude is cultural and patriarchal, carried over from its pre-Israelite biblical inheritance. As I say, woman was made from the rib or side of man. It is also the basis of racism and why animals, as well as women, the poor and black cultures, are subjugated under a calculated logic. To really understand this outlook I think you must approach it from the angle of emotional control. Who is, for instance, more deft in directing this energy towards human expansion? It is not an unfair statement to say that women are less evolved for it considering man has traditionally dominated through physical prowess in order to mitigate the losses and risks of war and hunting. But this is only a patriarchal outlook that defines women as disembodied individuals, and individuals without any social ties are considered private property and disempowered. But as Kropotkin forwards, in animals, instinct substitutes for reason as the weak and the young band together in order to outwit their predators. As such, if we project into the past we can understand that anthropologically females probably outnumbered males whose hunting forays were more likely to get them killed. This should indicate to you straight away that men had greater selection needs. Individually females were protected and so didn’t have to naturally learn how to outwit their prey, evolving a different type of intelligence - passive - that made them more emotionally sensitive and less commanding or objective. In fact when push comes to shove they were probably as good as meat, some of it sweet, some of it bitter, nevertheless making them submissive to a higher rationale, the changed environment brought home by the successful surviving males. The male individual, in his prowess, would then fulfil the inner aspiration of the female to achieve that higher level of survival, especially against a variety of dangers of sort. This is a basis for the origin of Jung’s anima/animus, formulated in the main during the transition period between a Paeleolithic culture and a Neolithic one, the latter of which was much more sedentary. Without denying females their influence in evolution it would be more creditable to allocate them their role in agriculture as labour whilst the wit of survival, through the increase of personal risk, evolved this emotional force of man to push technology to greater effect in an environment that threatens to shrink when faced with extinction. Hence man developed agriculture in smaller spaces in order to maintain numbers. In Palaeolithic times emotional development between male and female may not have been so disparate. It was only through

subject to qualifications. The relevant law, passed in November, 1990, permitted sexual intercourse for young people between 12 and 16 in most circumstances, but allowed a challenge by parents or by the Child Protection Agency if there was evidence of exploitation. (Evans, David T. (1993). Sexual Citizenship: The Material Construction of Sexualities, Routledge, London, p208) Although the age of consent was often reported internationally to be 12, this was partly misleading, because sexual acts up to 16 remained open to prosecution. The Netherlands has gained an international reputation of being extremely liberal on sexual issues, with some of this due to exaggerated reports in foreign media and claims by foreign politicians, rather than based on reality. For instance, during the 1980s, some conservative campaigners in the US claimed that children were sold into sexual slavery at "auctions" held in Amsterdam, but did not produce any evidence to support their claims. (Al Heigl, Webmaster (15 April 2014). "IPT Journal - "Mass Hysteria in Oude Pekela"". Ipt-forensics.com. Retrieved 17 May 2014)”. “Historically, the age of consent was usually twelve in the Christian kingdoms of Iberia. A new Penal Code was introduced in Spain in 1995 which specified an age of consent of 12 for all sexual acts, but this was raised to 13 in 1999 and to 16 in 2015. (“Las 20 claves del nuevo Código Penal". 1 July 2015. Archived from the original on 25 October 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2016); ("Entra en vigor la llamada ley mordaza"); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe 60 Peter Marshall, A History of Anarchism: Demanding the Impossible, Harper Perennial, London 1996, p256 the increase of technology that emotional energy could be sublimated towards invention whilst much of the emotional inclination of women was to biologically replace human losses. Emma Jung affirms this when she accredits to the modern female the role of technology to free up her psychic energy.61 It vindicates my point that without a history of accomplishment emotional development is biologically repressed in its creativity and forestalls the development of the logos. It has taken women this long to put themselves on the map.

What does a child want with an adult other than to play? Cultural values must be easily exchangeable in family environments; Iza the Polish girl went so far as wearing her mother’s shoes and looking for potential mates. As a 12 year old she was already touching herself, and wanted me to do so also. She indubitably got this from her mother and was probably spreading the influence to close friends at school. Her soul-force would continue to develop through her mother’s licentious behaviour. She would sit on my lap in a sexual pose, all the time I had to play it cool. I tried to dance with her and we had a fun time, justifying my point that sexual energy can be sublimated onto a higher level. But she didn’t rationalise here, it was spontaneity. She may have been groomed; the collective of minds becomes the reason, her soul-force, for her actions before she can develop any real sense of indviduality. As a young human animal she could deal with the predatory instincts of individuals only if she remains protected by the group. But as Jung says, to impose values without reflection is the modus operandi of the female struggling in a patriarchal world. That is because her instinct is asking questions of her. It is the difference between women and children. Women are looking to project but are fatally repelled. Children have not developed the emotional baggage yet that will define their unconscious repression. Their advances into the adult world take time to develop. With conscious development comes unconscious repression. It is the art of life to find the balance. The artist scribes the universe and in the process stretches it deeper in time and space. It is Augustine’s soul stretching between distentio and extentio, the former of which pulls the soul in numerous, often conflicting, directions whilst the latter seeks healing.62 Do you ever wonder why Buddhism deals with the emptying of the mind and Hinduism with karma yoga? It seems to be a Western phenomenon to want to dissect nature and give word to every operation.

I recall the American at the White Springs in Glastonbury, herself coming out of a stubborn relationship, seizing upon me as her projected animus when I sexually released her from her repressed emotions and creative despondency. Of a sudden she found the man of her dreams. And I think she would have been my perfect spiritual partner too had she not the foresight to see that such a long-distance relationship across two continents would not work when I consider in our conversations how much her mother dominated her life. Using what women ‘know’ best – irrational behaviour, she was dishonest and tried to play off her ex-boyfriend and working partner against me by winding him up; his messages to me show just how much Spiral was emotionally stretched. If anything, I brought it all home to her how insecure she was and how dependant she was on a man to fulfil her ambitions, not least to resurrect the ecological project she had developed on the farm in Michigan. In fact she used the opportunity to shield a new relationship she had entered into albeit with someone she had known from before. And from what I learnt she seemed to come alive after that in her creative force, in her new balance even if she kept on petitioning me how much of a wonderful man I was. As a spiritualist she needed the emotional development that, Jung says, religion once provided in transferring the animus, together with its associated problems, into the beyond.63 I wonder if she was traditionally brought up as a typical Christian, something I never asked her, because as Jung asserts, the biblical Father God once represented a metaphysical, superhuman aspect of the animus image, yet Spiral was deeply pagan and feminist I presume.

To serve man, indeed to serve, has been a cultural model for women in a patriarchal world for millennia although there have always been counter-cultural movements in the past. Done consciously shows just how much a materialistic mind- set can parasitize the spirit and subjugate it into its own image; it is technologic to reinvent nature. But more often than not first impressions are built upon that unconscious spiritual attraction and only later in a relationship can this devolve into conscious power and control mongering that ultimately destroys it. Kirsty was that ‘witch’ for me, my anima, and a projection of my unconsciousness that would make me feel whole. We lived on the edge, albeit for a short while only. When she tried to control this relationship I lost my spiritual impetus; I almost felt that I was being groomed myself. I didn’t need to have a child but Kirsty could almost have been my perfect host for such, in her ‘witch’ state – a ‘Morgana’ if you like. It is probably worth studying this myth in literature to see more deeply its relevance to a modern-day setting. Suffice to say, Morgan “le Fay” (which hints at her otherworldly origin) has been depicted both as a beautiful healer and

61 Emma Jung, op. cit., pp7-8 62 Matthew Drever, op. cit. pp19-20 63 Emma Jung, op. cit., p7 an evil licentious temptress.64 She seeks the ‘accepted’ powers of Merlin for her own ambitions which, if I correlate to Kirsty says something about the nature of my anima and the unconscious will to find a host; her redemption would be my fall. Nature though, is multifaceted. When I don’t have that person to project onto, creativity is not necessarily spurned but, through the higher soul or logos, it is internalised through the creative ability to control and channel the emotions into art, literature, music etc., the highest developed part of the human brain. The pattern is repeated over and over in my life, in my matriarchal drive, as I come to terms with the unconscious feminine anima as an active force towards psychological and spiritual balance. And this should enlighten you as to what could have originally developed the higher logos in the male, for matriarchal religions were, as far as studies confirm, abundant in antiquity, in the Paeleolithic age. If a biblical Father God, whether Christian or pagan, once represented, and still does, a metaphysical, supra-personal aspect of the animus in women, then the female goddess would have likewise served man in antiquity. Without removing the matriarchal influence too abruptly, the male must have rebelled against this type of worship during the oncoming Neolithic period of farming and the rise of the first cities. As I say, this transitional period during the Paelolithic must have been preceded by an oncoming environmental catastrophe and a shrinking environment. This is exactly what seems to be happening today with the threat of overpopulation and a scarcity of resources. Even though many modern-day environmentalists describe this scarcity as a myth, the reality is that man’s success is based upon the hoarding of wealth for the augmentation of technology and innovation, which goes hand in hand with the rise of individualism and elitism. The message then must still be different to today. Instead of a feminist solution to your problems and a reminsicient hankering after a matriarchal vision, I am proposing that a period much earlier in human evolution saw us as an un- technologized super race in which the super-divine aspects of our personality were unified. It was androgynous.

It colours an interesting picture as to what man must have been like then. Was he deeply spiritual and passive like me in the environmental sense exhibiting those androgynous qualities that the Genesis story is want to make us believe? Was he the “carnival man” whose everyday is full of providence? If the biblical Father God is the women’s ancestral deposit acting upon her animus then it would suggest that that the Mother Goddess worship depicted in figurines as old as 30,000 years BC symbolizing fertility indicated this ancestral deposit of the man’s anima and the desire to ‘fill the Earth’. This is interesting for the fact that during the last ice age this would have been around the time of the furthest extent of the glacial movements indicating a shrinking environment, inhibited movement and probably a deep racial memory of a once fertile environment. His survival instincts would clarify his male prowess in such a milieu. As such it is only when man stops moving that he develops the technology to overcome the shrinking environment in terms of food availability. Androgyny then would appear to be much older and signify a time when the egalitarian qualities of both males and females were very alike in their behavioural patterns, and this I would suggest necesitated the perpetual movements or migrations of humans across the landscape in order to mitigate its scarcity.65

I have alluded to this previously in my wrtings as a time of ‘nomadic’ abundance, in fact the evidence would suggest that human communities were much more widespread and communal giving rise to the now lost cultures of intercontinental travel and expansion. But here I will attribute to it an extra quality, for the egalitarian nature of the human makeup implies

64 “In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini, composed in the 12th century, Morgan is described as the most beautiful of nine sisters who rules Avalon, the Fortunate Isle. She also has healing powers and can shape-shift and fly.” During the Middle Ages her role shifts in perspective. Morgan is condemned for being a woman who seek political and magical power during this period when it was considered to be the devil’s tool. “In English depictions of the 14th and 15th centuries – such as Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D'Arthur or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – she often lurks at the fringes of the Arthurian court, plotting its downfall.” http://theconversation.com/morgan-le-fay-how-arthurian-legend-turned-a-powerful-woman-from-healer-to- villain-109928 65 This period is scientifically classified as the Pleistocene Epoch that began about 2.6 mllion years ago and around 60 million years after the last of the dinosaurs died out. It ended about 11 and a half thousand years ago with much of the melting of the ice causing widespread flooding. Humans first arrive during this period about 2.3 million years ago although there have been recent discoveries of our ancestors going back to at least 4 million years ago. What distinguishes the Pleistocene epoch is the fact that humans could be found in nearly all parts of the world at the end of it before this was truly followed by the Holocene Epoch. During the Pleistocene Epoch glaciers systematically advanced and retreated over vast areas of the Earth and temperatures were around 5-10 degrees cooler than today. It was a harsh period in which many animals died out including the large mammals but others thrived such as the reptiles and birds whilst vegetation was fairly llimited; https://www.livescience.com/40311-pleistocene-epoch.html that spiritually the mind had to be more greatly evolved vindicating a lack of unconscious repression, hence androgynous in its tendency. If you consider that androgyny is not conducive to survival, only preservation in the sense that it depends on a deep-seated environmental passivity and natural providence in the landscape, it presupposes the basis of why sexual temptation would come about during the commencement of an ‘apocalyptic’ era. As such God was represented by the natural world for the death or extinction of human populations, the first gods being characteristically elemental and conducive towards the racial memory of an androgynous milieu.66 It poses the question of whether man during a period of scarcity in antiquity naturally selected for women who had greater oestrogenal response in order to rapidly increase populations. It gives the basis of, not just lust, but the increased emotional response in general and hence the development of gender inequality in society. It also implies why our ancestral cousins the Neanderthal gave way to more technically- advanced humans like Cro-Magnon. The new evidence with improved radio-carbon techniques suggest a period about 40,000 years for the beginning of their extinction with pockets of existence going back 37,000 years ago in the Iberian Peninsula.67 The cause of their extinction has been attributed multifariously to an inability to adapt to climate change including the shift in diseases caused by parasites and pathogens, violence from, and consequent interbreeding with, early modern humans, competitive exclusion, and natural catastrophes to say the least. Genetically, I believe these qualities would have held on much later as a racial memory in the construction of the gathering centres of ancient religious sites that also manifest evidence for once great pilgramages across Europe and Asia, aka the “carnival man”.

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Much of this could be perceived as over-reacting to paranoia on my part but with time I began to realise that there was a prophetic character about my nature. The above phenomena could be explained as natural coincidence but it doesn’t exclude the possibility that it was consciously being usurped by 3rd party institutions. And that is my best bet. I was so deeply rooted in my unconsciousness that the feminine characteristics of my personality came out, and my projections were very much immature, naïve and malleable to say the least. As such I was looking for the embodiment of my anima in young people. Emma Jung points this out when she says that the anima can be projected through dreams indicated by elemental spirits. More often than not these elemental spirits represent where my feelings lie, characteristic of the feminine side of me, but as such need to be controlled. Considering I had had a personality breakdown in my late teens and early 20’s much of my conscious development was still immature; even today I cannot command a good memory in my creative talents like music which require that I see the words in front of me. But such an elemental spirit may appear flittingly in a dream to indicate that this feminine quality is out of touch, usually in the form of birds or other wild aspects of nature. And as such the disappointment of a lost relationship is accredited to this fact that I have no control over my unconscious surfacings. It is no wonder that I have always felt women to be manipulative of me as much as maybe most spiritually under-developed persons do; I have always considered myself passive in the environmental sense which is a theme prevalent throughout my writings. As such, on another conscious level it started to develop my appreciation of God, the androgynous aspect of me. Hence the prophetic nature of dreams can manifest as a wet dream because it indicates an undeveloped part of my conscious processes to engage the feminine side of my personality and embody it into reality, in other words to manage these feelings towards another female without losing control of them. I remember

66 The obvious Greek reference here is the offspring of Hermes and Aphrodite (‘Hermaphrodite’), and Hapy the god of the Nile river for the Egyptians whose pharaohs elicited both gender qualities, but a further study of prominent god/goddesses would include Ardhanarishvara (Sanskrit: “Lord who is half woman”), whose signification is that of the inseparability of male (Shiva) and female (Shakti) principles. A predecessor of Ardhanarishvara in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishads states that the first creature “was of the same size and kind as a man and woman closely embracing. He caused himself to fall into two pieces, and from him a husband and wife were born.” This is quite akin to the Genesis story. The subject is quite large and requires a deeper exegesis; https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ardhanarishvara; carry forward the Intersex Society of North America, http://cerebralboinkfest.blogspot.com/2011/08/androgynous-deities.html 67 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction being told this by a colleague who said that these wet dreams probably mean I am not getting enough sex. On another level it could be interpreted as the autonomic nervous system that acts largely unconsciously to regulate bodily functions and is located in the hypothalamus. Suffice to say, my personality breakdown really did feel like a second rebirth. It was probably the equivalent moment when Augustine realised the need to convert to Chrisitianity rather than continue conjugal relations with women he couldn’t love.

The experience of celibacy is undoubtedly spiritual and religious, and often it is preferred to over a materialistic culture; many of us remember our childhood as a magical time. It is only now, after a string of relationship failures, why I can verily see the whole picture from a conscious level in which it broaches the question as to whether I’d prefer to engage in getting old. Yes, there is a certain amount of feeling immortal whilst in this passive environmental state whereby my aging, albeit slow, maintains my looks and energy with a youthful appearance. Sexual abstinence is the ascetic practice of keeping young, practised widely and mainly through the withholding of one’s semen, possible even during sexual coitus. It had become a practice of mine to wake up at the moment of unconscious ejaculation so as to prevent it. I haven’t practised ascetic behaviour in and out of religious institutions but certainly in early Christianity the theological development can be firmly attributed to the desert hermits and the doctrinal forefathers in Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine in response to the role that women would play in their lives. Some of their views can appear very extreme; in fact if I would take Jesus as the model of spiritual purity then maybe I would have a case for accusing them of sexual immaturity. Bear in mind that psychologically I believe, as with Jung, that registering the unconscious is the first stage of developing a spiritual lifestyle, it then becomes arguable whether this should or needs to be actualised in sexual relationships. Certainly Augustine saw the ‘sin’ in sexual temptation and any nocturnal emissions would have felt, as I have mentioned earlier, like an evacuation of the spirit giving rise to the idea of a ‘fallen man’. Quite frankly the sexual cycle governed by the hypothalamus roots humanity in his biology. It is something you are born with, the ability to procreate. In its instigation of spiritual enlightenment it undoubtedly shows me that, preferable as it is to hold one’s seed back, I may have to look to other religions to reinterpret the experience rather as capable of fulfilling spiritual unity with another woman. Having said that, all the time I maintain exploring my deeper unconscious the supra-personal will always engage me on a mythic level with the royal archetypes that Jung says cannot be integrated. Effectively I would be looking for a person who would embody Mother Nature which is nigh impossible, but which the Virgin Mary could represent. It throws more light on the meaning of her presence. As queen of the heavens she would represent the archetype of womanhood but firmly places Jesus likewise in this mythical abode. If such a royal archetype could manifest through me, as I believe it has in the past, then a virgin of such unique qualities and maturity would indeed be a miracle of revelation.

It is too easy to taboo women when one feels strong and confident in their own conscious development, especially since the whole Church was founded upon the meaning of the logos and the rational processes that it promotes, clouded as it is with ‘mysteries’. The patriarchal stream was inherited through millennia and would at times rear its ugly head throughout the history of Christianity. Yet this is not to deny the natural psychological awareness that religious peoples hold of the problems thwart in cultivating the anima or animus and its prophetic language. We have already seen the theological development of Augustine and the importance he attributed to women. In the meanwhile let’s give some historical context to the the masked role that women have played in the movement. For this I am in gratitude to the brilliant book A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson.

Christianity in the second century was under threat of a sub-Hellenic Gnostic influence.68 Anybody could present themselves forward and claim leadership. In about 170AD a successful charismatic by the name of Montanus was declared an enemy of the Church. Women played a prominent role in his movement, as they did in a few Pauline congregations. He was accused of breaking up marriages and giving them ecclesiastical offices. It was because of Montanism that further orthodox efforts were made to ban the ministry to women. Tertullian emphasized this as such, ‘The impudence of the heretics’ women! They dare to teach, to dispute, to carry out exorcisms, perform cures – perhaps they even baptize…’ (Cf. On Baptism and the Veiling of Virgins, ‘The virgins of men go about, in opposition to the virgins of God, with front quite bare, excited to a rash audacity; and the semblance of virgins is exhibited by women who have the power of asking somewhat from husbands, not to say such a request as that (forsooth) their rivals--all the more "free" in that they are the "hand-maids" of Christ alone--may be surrendered to them.’)69 A propaganda train was put in place and albeit partially true, the Montanists were accused of excessive austerity whilst plugging leaders in society with large stipends. In actual fact though, the Montanists were behaving just like the Church in general, and were a part of the Church. Ironically, Tertullian, the scourge of heretics, would eventually join the movement since he could no longer

68 Johnson, P., op. cit., p49 69 http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/tertullian.html for a comprehensive list of Tertullian’s works. endorse the orthodoxy which denied any independent role to the Spirit.70 Evidently the Montanists were sincere and holy people.

In a recent paper by Magdalena Kubow the history of women’s role is cast in a greater light.71 It has been a constant Catholic church tradition to exclude women from the ministry, but contrary to scripture it only really developed in the 12th century when canon law was formally established. In fact it coincided with the rise of papal authority in the Middle Ages when the theology of what Kubow calls the “individual sacred priestly character”, was formed.72 We must remember that Augustine addressed most of his letters to wealthy women if only by dint of fact that they were widowed. Coming at the dawn of the 5th century after the sacking of Rome in 410 and addressing them from the heavily influenced Roman regions of North Africa, it alludes to how far women were prominent in the Roman Church; both Thagaste and Hippo Regius, where he spent much of his life, were both Roman provinces.73 However, the founding fathers of the Church were themselves both a product of, not just Roman law but, the dominant ‘Golden age’ of the Greek-Byzantine Empire. It spanned Asia Minor, Greece, Cyprus, Syria and the Greek-speaking colonies of Southern Italy until the 9th century from 300-1000AD. We should remember also that the Christian conversion of the Roman Empire by Constantine occurred in 325AD. As such Christendom prospered under the imperial power established in Constantinople (John Wijngaards, No Women in Holy Orders? The Women Deacons of the Early Church (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2002), 110) but the collapse of the West at the end of the 5th century and the subsequent devastation of Christian communities in North Africa and other European centres ensured that it continued to flourish in Byzantia until the 9th century. As such, and especially in the first 3 centuries, there was scope for women to establish themselves in the movement being already a part of the diaconate. This would eventually change under the councils or synods where ecclesiastical laws were decided. But it was not until the 11th century that Canon law asserted its papal rigour in which women would finally be excluded from office.

Kubow highlights that the earliest Christian communities in the West and dating until the beginning of the 4th century document three ‘types’ of ministries: episcopoi (overseers), presbyteroi (elders), and diakonoi (servants). (Ibid., 10) But from the 2nd century onwards these religious ministries of bishop, presbyter, and deacon were already extensively recognized by Christian believers within its private spheres dedicated by the community’s prayers and the imposition of hands as noted in Acts 6:6, 14:23, and 20:28. For example St. Clement of Alexandria (150-215) details the tasks of female deacons acting as “co-ministers” alongside male deacons in the “teaching of the Lord”. Likewise Origen of Alexandria (185-254) also notes that “women are established as deacons in the Church.” (Translated text from St. Clement of Alexandria’s Stromate 3,6, reproduced in Text Section of John Wijngaards, ibid., p160) Women were in active service even if the Church under Roman law contravenes this by stating that she cannot change that which Jesus established since it is not a recognized sacramental position.74 And of course this was vindicated when it succeeded Judaism, for instead of authority being descended via the patriarchal family where women could have an influence in the small economy of the house, the new Christian religion received its authority by divine transmission,75 completing the dependency of women upon the ‘rib of Adam’, viz. ‘the hand of God’. These arguments persisted on the basis that the diversity of congregations in the early centuries left a lot to be defined. For instance, the Apostolic tradition was founded by the Jerusalem Church but by AD70 and the Second Jewish Revolt the Jerusalem congregation never recovered, and the reality was that some congregations were more powerful than others. As such only Rome continued the Apostolic tradition of Peter and Paul since the both was considered to have been martyred there.76

Undoubtedly by the 4th century the Emperor Julian in his attempt to reinstate paganism had noted the mutual love between Christians when he observed how their welfare system supported not just their own but also the Roman.77 He would have traced the historical influence of the role of women to perforce look after the poor since its early days through such Jewish traditions as ‘soup kitchens’. They took over the proselytising elements of Judaism which now ceased to expand. The husband was told to treat his wife as Christ had showed to his ‘bride’ the Church. This was further backed by Jesus’ definite teaching on the sanctity of marriage and it was through women converts that Christianity perforated the

70 Johnson, P., op. cit., p50 71 Magdalena Kubow, ‘Women in the Church? A Historical Survey’ found at https://www.academia.edu/people/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Women+in+the+Church%3F+A+Historical +Survey 72 Ibid., pp2-7 73 Michael Mendelson, ‘Saint Augustine’, The Stanford Encyclodpedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Zalta. 74 Magdalena Kubow, op. cit., p5 75 Johnson, P., op. cit., pp108-9 76 Ibid., p60 77 Ibid., p75 upper-classes bringing up their children as Christians. During the second and third centuries there was still much opposition to the Christian movement albeit its followers had ceased to become martyrs in general and the State religion had to recognize them and acknowledge that they had become a potential ally. Kubow notes that by the beginning of the fourth century it is evident that the established female diaconate was soon to be high in demand.78 Yet a general rift was opening up and the basis of this was simply due to the Roman conventions of the time. After Rome’s conversion Christianity was being banded into Roman customs and bishops, aligned to noble houses, collected large fees for preaching in the metropolises.79 Fashionable clerics who might otherwise be known as heretics could easily be protected. By this time a bishop would be entitled to a quarter of the total revenue of a see. Yet not all bishops fell into this patronage. For example Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390) resigned the role in Constantinople and John Chrysostom (347- 407) took much the same line in scourging the rich, including wealthy widows, by banning episcopal entertainments. It was this austere footing against womankind in the Church that Jerome, a contemporary, took against “their huge litters, with red cloaks and fat bodies, a file of eunuchs walking in front; they have not so much lost husbands but seek them… The clergy, who ought to inspire awe with their teaching and authority, kiss their ladies on the forehead and, putting forth their hands as though to bless, take money for their visits… after a large supper these ladies dream of the Apostles.” Jerome (347-420) was aware of the populist phenomenon that Christianity had become amongst the rich. As the secretary to Damasus they completed the Latinization of the Western Church and the Mass, producing a fresh translation of the entire scriptures known as the Vulgate.80 Ironically, it was through Damasus that a great deal of money was spent integrating Christianity with the imperial culture. It began the tradition of papal patronage as now basilicas were being built on a large scale to hold thousands. Since the patriarchal traditions were extant across the Mediterranean it is not surprising that Christianity fitted into the boots of imperial culture. It had become the main religion by the end of the 4th century, with its new status of “official rank and privilege, integration with the social and economic hierarchy, splendid and elaborate ceremonial designed to attract the masses and emphasize the separateness of the priestly caste.”81

Kubow mentions that some historians equate the ordination of women to the diaconate from this period of the conversion of the Roman Empire.82 (Cf. Davies, J.G. ‘Deacons, Deaconesses, and Minor Orders in the Patristic Period’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 14 (1963), pp1-3) However, what is certain is that from the fourth century onward, female deacons mainly in the Byzantine Christian tradition were recognized as the norm. (John Wijngaards, The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church: Unmasking a Cuckoo’s Egg Tradition (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2001), 17) It was during the time of St. John Chrysostom that the temporal role of helping the poor, the sick, widows, and the management of all church property fell to the deacons, in the process gaining them more influence over the presbyters and requiring them to travel extensively between home settings. In In Epistolam ad Romanos Chrysostom himself is noted to have upheld the influence of prominent deaconesses. However, problems of allowing women such prominent roles were in the main due to the established patriarchal code of the public sphere. Kubow says that Roman law primarily gave paternal power (patria potestas) to the father who had absolute authority over his entire family (pater familias) (John Wijngaards, ibid., 51-53) The wife could be punished by death, sold into slavery, or beaten if she violated this code since she was regarded as his property. As a wife, the woman owned nothing, not even her dowry. In the manner that slaves were treated women belonged to their husbands and carried no name for themselves. All civil and public responsibility, even whilst Christianity became institutionalised, was excluded to them including guardianship and representation in law, on the basis of their ignorance pertaining to public life. Ambrosiaster (4th century) put it succinctly: “How can anyone maintain that woman is the likeness of God when she is demonstrably subject to the domination of man and has no kind of authority? For she can neither teach nor be a witness in a court nor exercise citizenship etc.” (Ambrosiaster, On 1 Corinthians 14, 34 in John Wijngaards, ibid., p53) Augustine too maintained that it was irrational for a woman to act as a leader or preside over the Eucharist “because no woman could have authority over men. Such a thing would offend ‘nature and [Roman] law’.” (Kubow’s parenthesis; translated excerpt from Augustine’s Sermon on the Mount in John Wijngaards, ‘No Women in Holy Orders? The Women Deacons of the Early Church’, p69) The dissolution thus of the female diaconate was based upon the need for control, power and influence, qualities women were thought incapable of presenting due to their intellectual and physical inferiority.

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78 Magdalena Kubow, op. cit., p7 79 Johnson, P., op. cit., p100 80 Ibid., p101 81 Ibid., p103 82 Magdalena Kubow, op. cit., p7

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At the end of his life and to some of his contemporaries Augustine appeared to lapse into a kind of Manichean pessimism, regarding sexual desire as something evil and a direct result of original sin.83 For all his efforts he became a spectator to the continued raging of war and disease around him and the pivotal role that the Church must fulfil. And with little doubt, he saw the destruction of man through his sexuality. In his sinful drive man is equatable to that instinct found in animals (bestiale motum), and so finds the necessity to copulate in order to replace those that die. (Gen. litt. 11.32.42 trans. Taylor 1982) It accords with my own theories of the nature of the Apocalyspe either through God’s omniscience or through man’s pride. For man invents the will that redefines nature, as Augustine put it, “As soon, then, as they had violated the precept, they were completely naked, deserted inside by the grace that they had offended by pride and arrogant love of their own independence. Casting their eyes on their bodies, they felt a movement of concupiscence which they had not known”. (Gen. litt. 11.31.41; trans. Taylor 1982) In other words, the will to draw closer to God through creatio ex(de) nihilo had been subverted, lowering man’s soul onto the level of his sensual body. It presupposes that animals also lust and equates to Augustine’s interpretation that nature isn’t perfect. As such he saw that Adam and Eve before the Fall must have had a pivotal role to play in upholding God’s omnipotence for now Man has the freedom to sin.

As contentious as this sounds I would disagree that we need to cast Adam and Eve in an advanced state of humanity, and certainly in my own guiltless acts of sexual venture I feel that the animal instinct is a viable way forward, if only biologically. For me all creation is spiritual. What Augustine refers to is a logos or rationale that struggles to find equilibrium in a human world at war with itself, yet when the individual lets go of their own compulsive behaviour and with it the cause of disease and suffering, then this act of transcendence is itself a creative force for the restoration of society. And this is the solteriology that Augustine favours. In this I would agree; man’s salvation requires a spiritual act as much as nature enacts in its revolutions. Most certainly though I would not renounce my sexuality entirely until I knew I had exhausted all my spiritual options. It was also a charge levelled at Augustine by the aforemention Bishop Julian of Eclanum, a follower of the philophy of Pelagius and of the promotion of free will in sex and marriage. Pelagianism states that man is capable to choose not to sin as much as to sin in will. What is innate is therefore of God and grace and hence is not an inheritance of Adam after the Fall. In fact what conditions sin is society itself.84

Like Augustine I am intrigued how to define Chrisitianity in opposition to sexual freedom considering the religious maxim “increase and multiply”, when the only reason could have been his subjective hurt and personal loss of love. Maybe it is not so much the animal that lusts but the human mind that redefines nature for his own pride and justification. Bearing in mind Augustine is considered as a pioneering theoretician of memory, having described it once as “the belly of the mind,”85 it juxtaposes his natural instincts against his higher will. The soul’s loss of control over the body, say through the example of an involuntary erection of the penis, was, for Augustine, a just punishment (though a self-inflicted one) that would remind him of his lost love and continued hurt.86 It was a sacrifice he had made and for which his own proud development of the Church would not let him go back to. He is quoted by Paul Johnson of his zealous response to a man of 84 years old known for his exemplary piety and devotion to his wife suddenly taking a dancing girl for pleasure. I feel something of the torture of the memory of his own concubine and child on the lines of Jerome before he joined the Christian ranks. In order to vindicate this, his love was now for God, whom is justified in punishing man for his imperfectable soul with an unavoidable world at war; the Parousia would have to wait. The disobedience of Adam and Eve necessitated the development of a Christian theology that would follow his example and, dare I say, his own pride and ambition. However, David Hunter goes on to say that critiques of Augustine’s thought should also acknowledge that he always maintained that the original good purpose of sex was to procreate. This is supported in On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis in which Augustine explains that the original blessing to “increase and multiply” continues beyond the Fall. (Gen. litt. 3.13.21; 9.3.5). Book 9 states that, with their animal bodies Adam and Eve, in sin or not, could reproduce sexually. As Brown has noted, “They had been set in Paradise to found a populus; and to found a populus implied more than the disembodied meeting of like-minded souls. It involved physical intercourse, childbirth, and the

83 David Hunter, op. cit., p358-359 84 For further discussion on Pelagius and sexuality in a modern-day setting see https://www.seedbed.com/pelagian-heresy-sexual-revolution/ 85 Bryan Albia , op. cit., p3 86 David Hunter, op. cit., p358-359 rearing of children. [...] Compared with the notions of many of his most vocal contemporaries, it was a singularly sociable and full-blooded vision.”87 (Brown 1988: 400–1) (2) As such 3 key elements remain good in marriage even after the contraction of sin. These are offspring, fidelity, and the sacramental bond. (Gen. litt. 9.7.12)

In a paper by Liz Vestal she states that he was not apt to be around women for long and kept himself away from their temptations.88 Having admitted that he was a slave to lust his views of sex were later considered twisted by his opponents because of his Manichean influence but he was never a libertine though. In fact, he wrote enormous amounts and made frequent references to the corporeal body, much of it surviving right into the next millennium, including the aforementioned Confessions in AD397 which was an autobiography addressed to God. It is here that a young sinful Augustine is depicted in the shadow of his pious Christian mother in his efforts to overcome the sexual urge.89 His father is barely mentioned. What is certain though is that when his mother followed him to Milan she arranged an honest marriage for him on the basis that he must abandon his mistress, the love of his life. Having accepted this marriage, he did not wait 2 more years in order for his fiancée to come of age, and in fact procured another concubine in the meanwhile who could not quite replace the emotional hurt of losing his first.90 With a decreased sensitivity to pain he eventuated to choose a celibate lifestyle. It is interesting to note that during his lifetime Roman Aristocrats, on conversion, were known to give away their wealth and live celibate marriages to contemplate God.91 Augustine then, was in good company.

But in order to endeavour further of the nature of sexual temptation in religion and spirituality, one can see that sexuality has always been an awkward corner carried out in successive generations which was so wholly engrained in Christian guilt that it juxtaposed the formation of new movements. Some modern day libertarian commentators like Alex Comfort ascribe this repressive condition either to a lack of sex or the meddling role that institutions play in people’s personal lives. Europe was flung into medieval wars over claims of dominance, hardly unprecedented in the Christian Church itself. With this the breakdown of society provided opportune moments to assert new beliefs, doctrines and laws outside of the Church. The 13th century proved to be pivotal in which there was a series of paradigm shifts away from an Augustinian theology of nature in which all creatures including humanity are dependant upon God. It was Aristotelian to say the least that showed nature to be more simplistic, regulated and novel.92 (Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 121) Whether one is carrying a banner of justice, liberation or equality a shift in beliefs systems have been in many ways a need to reassert individual integrity whilst the Church was proving to be an outmoded social, political and economic body. Whilst believers could still be encouraged to take on the mantle of the Suffering Servant undoubtedly the apocalyptic message was failing religiously, and the salvation of man was being grounded in the pride of humanity to assert itself via technology. Science would substitute for the role of the Father archetypal figure, if you like a dependence on the mechanisation of the universe to save our souls, and the religious institutions of the Church were taken over by secular modes of activities. And this is how I understand the Apocalyspe to manifest, in human nature per se and the human capacity to reveal the Unknown; the Christian mysteries had failed to enlighten the masses in their repression. If anything, Christinaity appeared to contribute just a much towards Individualism as it did to religious piety and so could have no qualms concerning the Enlightenment and the age of scepticism in the 17th century.

Often, people are judged by their sexuality because it is the one aspect of their personality that expresses unconscious manifestations or outward expressions of, what Jung refers to as, the anima and animus. In the case of the woman Jung quotes Goethe in reference to Faust in that the masculine principle of the animus is represented as a 4-stage process of power or will, deed, word, and meaning.93 It characterizes the Greek logos and presupposes an element of consciousness that women can achieve. Hence many people interpret the Apocalypse in St. John’s Gospel as a revelation of knowledge and meaning, a Parousia of different sorts other than a heavenly city. It directly alludes to a state of perfect union in Christ which gives basis to the Genesis account of Creation. As Brown succinctly puts it:

87Ibid. 88 Liz Vestal, ‘Augustine and Women: It’s Not As Bad As You Think’, 2015, p4 found at https://www.academia.edu/13061943/Augustine_of_Hippo_The_Feminist 89 Johnson, P., op. cit., p113 90 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo 91 https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/st-augustines-confessions/critical-essays/augustines-view-of- sexuality 92 Teri Merrick, op. cit., p3 93 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p3

“This meant that sexuality, hence marriage and the creation of the family, could only have followed the Fall of Adam and Eve. [...] Marriage, and the structures that sprang from it, could not be derived from the original nature of the human person. Ascetic exegesis of the Fall of Adam and Eve tended to preserve, at the back of the minds of its exponents, a lingering doubt: society, marriage, and if not those, certainly sexual intercourse, were fundamentally alien to the original definition of humanity.”94 (Brown 1988: 399)

Certainly it refers to a paradigm of consciousness, as such that a woman can only attach herself to a real man accorded to a hgher level of her animus. It should hail to the idea that married couples can return to their original sexual roles, as Augustine thought, albeit this presupposes a level of spirituality in the relationship and the need for women to fulfil men’s higher motivation towards the imago Dei and omniscience if not their own. Whether he was referring either to a celibate or a convenience marriage let’s not be ambiguous as to the general protocol of Augustine’s most vocal contemporaries at the time, in the East Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom, in the West Ambrose and Jerome. Brown states that marriage, intercourse, and paradise were as incompatible as paradise and death. Once Augustine placed the origin of the body and sexuality in paradise, the both are then susceptible to sin since biologically they become prone to death and disease. And the very fact that he lived in a world where by virtue of their bodily sex women are naturally submissive to men,95 all this points to his understanding that men could do without women in their life. I continue to pose the queston: Was Augustine naturally referring to to a state of androgyny?

As we know, Augustine was averse to being in company with women after his conversion in the light of his former lustful relationship to his concubine, and for this reason he never had female students or scholars in his circle of friends. Spirituality here is understood as the path of the righteous by which one is chosen to enter into God’s grace without the freedom to err into sin. At some stage then, the couple would have to let go of hands and continue alone. Augustine confirms this in Book 13.32 of Confessions when he says that even if women are equal to men in their capacity to be rational, it is their unbridled energy that poses a threat to men’s rationality. It is a fact that the women in the Confessions who receive full worth are only those who renounce their sexual ties and become chaste, as did both his mother Monica as a widow and his former concubine as a self-avowed celibate. All this is ambiguous to say the least but it makes more sense if we see the perfect state as an androgynous being. Whether this has always been the role of the Church is a queston I cannot answer, but I had earlier pointed out that women, on entering a convent, were cultured into losing their feminine sexuality entirely. It leaves a few questions open. The above author in question96 explains that Augustine was also writing historically, and so to pose these female figures in the light of chastity looks like a literary tool in order to exaggerate his own claims to concupiscience. He lived with his concubine for several years, apparently faithfully, and even had a child with her. For all intents and purposes it was a conjugal relationship. But if the whole spiritual path is taken into consideration these women are seen to give him strength whilst keeping one foot firmly on the slain beast. At the same time it points women in the direction that they would have to traverse in their own rational capacity.

Did Augustine assume that Adam and Eve had conjugal relations in the Garden of Eden before the Fall? Oor rather that they were unmarried as in his own deeply attached way with his first concubine? Of course the overarching solteriologic figure of Christ posed a problem in his theory, being celibate. Admitting that one can have sexual relations without sin guilt in the Garden of Eden he was fully conscious of the threat of the bodily desire to fall back into lusting after women. Yet when he was convinced to break off all female relationships and enter into the Christian Church, solteriologically he could have only been aware of the androgynous qualities that the higher will draws to itself and the marrying of the unconscious and conscious in the individual. As is said, he was a prototype of the psychologist also. And to this he applied his knowledge in his public relations to all women. Here he saw his true role vindicated by the numerous letters that he wrote to them. Primarily he must have been aware of the need for women to evolve to a higher level of the unconscious other than the power to will, as well as that of his religious contemporaries like Jerome who was continually beset by their own weakness, for then their salvation would emulate the approach of the Desert Fathers. As such a fairer point in defense of the the ‘new’ Church is that under Roman law women were already too subjugated and uneducated to be able to fulfil this role and so any hope of a return to Eden in the heavenly city would be an historical anomaly or anachronism that had to wait. Hence the apocalyptic era predating from the time of the Jewish desert communities concluded in the writings of the Chrisitan Fathers and it is here that I think Augustine saw his role in the eventual collapse of Roman society. It is no wonder that he had such high esteem for the Desert Fathers like St. Anthony. Under Roman

94 David Hunter, op. cit., p358-359 95 https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/st-augustines-confessions/critical-essays/women-in-the-confessions 96 Ibid. society the Apocalypse and the heavenly city were unachievable, hence his emphasis on faith.

But this hope for women was not conjured out of invention. Modern psychoanalysists are keen to interpret the relationship between him and his mother, Monica, as being pivotal to his beliefs. Indeed the Christian millenium to follow would focus not so much on the other women in Christ’s life but more on the role of mother Mary. Monica is seen as the perfect model of faith who not only converts her own husband but is justified in postponing Augustine’s baptism on the basis that she wants him to achieve worldly success.97 It may have been the lynchpin for his increased efforts to transform the Church and as previously noted, it surprised her how strong and early Augustine took up the Christian mantle. In the Confessions Monica is stereotypically portrayed as a strong, energetic, and devoted mother. Augustine depicts her typically feminine qualities and virtues like patience, mildness, obedience, selfless service to others, temperance, and piety, whilst keeping her firmly human by describing her aversion to gossip.98 “Monica's portrait is highly stylized. She is the Church, steadfast in devotion to God; she is Eve, the chastened sinner; she is Dido, the selfish lover; she the embodiment of simple, uneducated faith, untainted by the kind of intellectual striving that so plagues Augustine.” Given her psychological aspect as a perfect partner to an ‘imperfect’ Augustine it is not surprising that the mature author in Augustine projected upon her this image of the obedient woman of simple uneducated faith who nevertheless is flawed for her humanness. She thus fulfils her role to all the other aspiring mothers whose role it is to bring up their own sons with a view to strenthenging the Church albeit it will remain patriarchal under Roman law. The ambiguity is deliberate. Since Roman law subjugates the female to little more than her husband’s property, Augustine here must uphold those motherly Marian qualities and import into society the requirement to evolve. Without claiming women as equal to men in their rationale, the rational thing to do is to bring up their own sons in this image. Women are to serve men if they are to see any hope of being freed from Roman convention. And this would be the endearing Mother archetype figure that would continue to serve religious man for another millennium as Mary, the devoted mother of Christ, subsequently goes through a transformation of interpretation throughout the Middle Ages. The Immaculate Conception apart, Monica, having committed the sin of sexual intercourse, is redeemed in her role to bring her son up in the Christian faith towards the evolution of man per se. When one inserts her role then into Jung’s 4-stage unconscious realm of directed power or will, deed, word, and meaning, the psychology, as Jung confirms, presupposes an element of consciousness in the woman99, and this I believe was Augustine’s way of attributing the theological importance of Monica’s role for women in the Church to become conscious of the potential to evolve. Accorded to the woman’s particular stage of development this projected animus moves beyond fantasy and embodies itself in the flesh, in this case Augustine’s own body. He thus becomes the object of her deeds which, as Jung says, “lends a definite coloration from within the woman herself to all that she does”. This is the unconscious realm the early Church sought to develop if it was to make sense of the importance of women in the Bible without further subjugating them under the general patriarchical current.

When I look back at my own relationships I am fully aware of this phenomenon. To get out of her procrastination Kirsty could have seen me at that level of the deed since I was a well-known achiever of physical feats like long-distance bike riding. I was also a performing guitarist, something her own musical studies stuttered over. Locked into her high sexual drive where her directed power or will longed for the higher realms of her soul, she began to mould me into her own image, as possibly the agonizing Jerome would have felt had he not so openly allowed these projections to take a spiritual hold upon him. And this is the crux of the matter, when it is possible to consciously live within each other’s’ unconscious projections through friendships and sexual union, many men close up this side of their feelings for want of controlling their sexual urges in a rational logical way but which isn’t achievable without acknowledging and experimenting with their own feelings too. An oppressive patriarchal current is exacerbated in a milieu where men disguise their own feminine qualities. Every truly spiritual person discovers this and it is the temptation that still haunts the Church today.

Aware that I was a natural psychologist I tried to present a multifaceted personality to Kirsty; I was operating at every level of the logos to such a degree that I opened up to her with passive experiment. When she felt that she could sexually exploit me her masculine projection unhitched itself and she would have realised that I could not be the person who would carry her musical career further. In fact she openly admitted, and I reiterate an earlier point, that she would sexually offer herself up to anyone who could bring her the material lifestyle she envisioned in association with her creative talents; she was potentially a great singer even if she was unimaginative in sex. And again I quote Emma Jung here in what she says of elemental spirits depicted in dreams and stories. Wanting birth into the modern human technological world in a time of material scarcity, they act just like the animus in its intentions now that the women is

97 Ibid. 98 Ibid. 99 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p3 freed up from her household economy. Repressed elements of a person may remain primitive and undifferentiated and so are un-adapted, as ere-mentioned during the extinction of our cousins the Neanderthal, until as such they are brought to conscious realisation and evolution.100 And this was the case with Kirsty who, absent from her long-time boyfriend, sought me as the sexual release for her higher aspirations. What she didn’t understand though, is that I had a multifaceted personality as I say, a chameleon of sorts who changes his colours, and can be just about anyone I want to, including her lusty paramour. This is the magician in me, flying in the face of our supra-personal royal archetypes that cannot be integrated of themselves. It is the experiment of life which gives rise to an alter-ego that chooses its own audience towards the realisation of its own power through the collection of ‘souls’. I was never repressed, not sexually, since I found the creative element of my logos through spiritual emancipation. It is one of the reasons why I gave up masturbation so early and easily in my life, not unlike smoking and any other craving, when I realised the sensual and social attachment to it; I just did not feel I was one of the pack, rather I was alien to it. Kirsty, on the other hand, was too young to deal with this energy, and so sought the person who would lift her onto a higher level of her unconscious development. Whilst I projected upon Kirsty a wild, caring sexual image as her own unconscious demanded it, she represented to me, “the nixie that lives in the water, that is, …the feminine in a semi-human, almost unconscious state. In so far that she is married to a man one may assume that she represents his unconscious, natural anima, together with his undifferentiated feeling, since her transgressions occur in this realm… At the same time it must be noted that she is unadapted not to matters of individual but of collective feeling. It is a fact that one’s unconscious personality components (the anima, animus and shadow), or one’s inferior functions, are always those which the world finds offensive, and which are therefore repressed again and again.”101 Kubow says that this was evidenced in the witch craze whereby all manner of the ills of society was primarily blamed on their sex.102 (Cf. Marianne Hester. ‘The Conclusion’, Lewd Women and Wicked Witches: A Study in the Dynamics of Male Domination (New York: Routledge, 1992), 198-204; Carolyn Merchant, ‘Nature as Disorder: Women as Witches’; ‘Dominion Over Nature’, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), 127-148, 164-191; Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts (San Francisco: Pandora, 1994))

Not to lose my track here, I believe Kirsty’s alter-ego was that of a repressed sex goddess trying to find conscious realisation in a modern world. When I met her at the Serpentine Swimming Club in Hyde Park her sexuality was a welcome input. Most adults there knew how to deal with a lusty aura even if I wasn’t the only person who would petition it. Undoubtedly though this conscious soul-force began releasing the personal archetypes that older men generate in the younger generation, and there is no lack of sensual energy in such an electric environmnent as the small, shared changing room of the club. The power of this will is apparanet in the restraint that powerful men have in preventing an erection, albeit after a cold swim this is somewhat made easier. And there are a lot of powerful persons there bringing in their entourage of social salience to the scene that any such young immature person can be unconsciously affected by. Kirsty would tell me that her small pert breasts had an affect upon the older men, even if I believe this was partly her wishful thinking on the subject. She began to see herself as the sexual goddess, a biological solution to all this energy, and a figure to be adored. My inclusion of her naked photos warrants further investigation as she definitely appears in a nymphomanial state. I, on the other hand, lapped up all this energy as would a magician feeding of his mortal adversary but who would return the compliment with some occasional musical entertainment. I was in a creative paradise; one of my favourite maxims has always been ‘to dwell amongst the enemy’. But that was the trade-off with my own unconscious which at first allowed for my spirituality to progress but then melted into lusty behaviour. The psychologist, poet, musician, and athlete all suffered at the expense of the lover.

Jung says that the woman’s animus is a master of any sort of ability or knowledge and will seek this context for its projection when left to its own devices.103 However, in dreams and fantasies it manifests as a council of sorts, a court, viz. a plurality of men in respect of the diversity of man’s activities in the world, “or else as a lightning-change artist who can assume any form and makes extensive use of this ability.” This was not unlike who I could have been to Kirsty in the beginning. How it expresses itself though is in accord with the logos principle and often to a purely repressed feminine mind this more often than not appears as a ‘stranger’ figure. I’d like to think that most of my own personal relationships maintained this ‘stranger’ characteristic explaining why they were fun at first but never lasted, yet that is not the case today. Whether in singularity or plurality the unconscious masculine element of a woman always represents the developed logos and a mental capacity whereas, on the contrary the man’s anima figure is characterized by the fact that it appears in

100 Ibid., p63 101 Ibid. 102 Kubow, op. cit., p13 103 Jung, Emma, op. cit., pp27-28 quite definite forms and at the same time forms of relationship of how women have presented themselves to him in history. For instance, in Augustine’s case this has been the ‘mother’ figure.

Jung relates an Indian fantasy story illustrating the doubling of the woman’s animus figure in which a magician’s power is represented as the lower form of the animus - it makes a dancing girl take on or imitate various roles under its influence - whilst a king embodies the higher principle and overrides the magician’s control, which brings about a real transformation or death of the dancer.104 Here Jung attributes magic power and superstition to the lower form of the animus on the basis of its lack of unconscious development; it is primitive and the dancing girl has no immediate answer to it in her repression. On the other hand the higher aspect is where real transformation occurs since the dancer dies an ecstatic death, is buried and then, in the form of an emerging white woman, is reborn through a flower. This is interesting in so far as it relates to Augustine who talked about the higher soul and the lower soul. To the lower soul he accredited the sensual body and material knowledge, to the higher the intellection of the will towards omniscience and predestination. It’s a matter of terminology and degree. Yet this story seems to highlight a contradictory scenario. Rather than Augustine’s innate desire to commit sin through sensual behaviour the dancing girl or soul in its lower form is instead acting on command by the magician, an unconscious repression of sorts that denies her free will. In the higher form of her animus her volition brings her to bliss. There is no indication here of the agonizing Christian in his or her closeness to God and the supreme impersonal form. Rather it indicates a disjuncture in Christian and pagan thought in their intepretations of how Heaven or Elysium is reached and may have a lot to do with the piecemeal expulsion of gnostic influences, paganism per se, within developing Christian doctrine. For instance, when the great pagan learning centres and libraries were burning or closing down in the 5th and 6th centuries, the universities of Alexandria in 517 and Athens in 527, Christian historiagraphers wanted to say very little about it, such was the cultural train of thought at the time.105 In fact they had no real cultural alternative; Christian doctrine was now being premised on faith and an electionist mentality. Anyhow, in my own personal interpretation I like to think that I make an apologetic and a bridge to paganism more on the lines of Origen’s optimism as a feature of earlier Christianity, a revival that had been snuffed out.

I make a case that the soul-force is the collective consciousness, viz. social consciousness, acting upon the individual through the collective unconsciousness or Jung’s animus in personal ways. As I say, it is a matter of terminology. I differ in giving the soul a real-time dynamic triggered directly through one’s social circles. To the dancer in the above tale this is represented as an unconscious will acting upon her in the form of the magician (patriarchy), carrying the cultural conventions of the time as might a woman feel in her repression. In fact Jung does not appear to make a distinction between the soul and the spirit as I do and as such I believe Jung is referring to the soul in its lower form of the spirit when she quotes the dancing girl receiving command from the magician. In effect it is a social consciousness, a herd instinct indicated here and not an individuated one of higher will; she obeys the norms of society. Yet in its higher form her volition indicates the paradoxical nature of the instinctive or unconscious drive to occlude all rationale and thus behave spontaneously without the impedance of thought to the process of choice. Augustine would like to believe this is predestination and the higher will. As I say, the path is chosen for us. Yet the Eastern standpoint in this Indian tale seems to suggest that spiritually one can sensually attain higher states of mind too, as in the ecstatic Sufi dervishes or dances, which in itself is indicative of the intellectual schism that would finally tear the Roman Empire into two halves. This is epitomised in Augustine’s account of an 84-year old pious man suddenly overcome in his carnal drive to move with the herd instinct and lay with a dancing girl, his interpretation is such that the loss of proximity to God is affected through the libido’s power to continue to procreate as would an animal. Hence the magician here represents the repression experienced in the lower soul and the collective consciousness acting upon the personal, and the king the individuated higher soul or Jung’s spiritual awakening of the animus, but which can also be a pure sensuous experience. As such the spiritual drive for me is rooted in the collective unconscious which is given social impetus to develop its unconscious archetypes whether through intellection of the spirit or sensually as a blissful act. It is important to understand here that the environment plays a pivotal role in contextualising the spiritual experience. Contrary to Augustine then, Julian would accord here in his expounding of Pelagianism, and seems to suggest an Eastern influence in regarding sexual union through marriage as likewise a means to proximity to God. But, I would like to emphasize, that the greater mystery here purports to the ability to internalise the sexual experience and recover androgyny to the individual, i.e. the individuation or marriage of gender.

As such then, the dancing girl dances herself to death through her own choice and higher will. In my opinion though, Jung would interpret this story more correctly had she attributed the impersonal super-divine form to the king as a

104 Ibid., pp32-37 105 Paul Johnson, op. cit., p112 predestined moment. This is indicated by the fact that in the story the king commands the magician without the dancing girl needing to be fully aware of this. In fact the psychopompos nature of the king as a soul guide is indicative of the importance of her environment acting upon her, hence the need for learned discrimination within one’s actual social circles. More so, it alludes to an eschatological theme, apocalyptic in the least, and the idea of impersonal sacrifice. The question this continues to raise is whether individuality is really a context for freedom of will. If it is bourne by the mens, Augustine’s higher soul, it is suggestive of going beyond the instinctive conditioning of a social consciousness and its production of personal archetypes, yet comes to the same conclusion that there is no free will, only a predestined one. It needs to use the willed processes of the intellect and the rationale mind to discover this for itself. Man in his ‘fallen’ condition then is a state of delusion. This is in effect his attachment to material things; the workings of the intellect don’t necessarily have to have a spiritual motive and only convinces itself that it is free in its thinking. It clarifies in some ways Jung’s animus and the woman’s projection of her unconscious will upon a man who is developed enough to mediate such. Ultimately it still makes him dependent upon the need of a woman and thus obfuscates any sense of free will that he might have thought he possessed. Jung goes on to say that some familiar musical figures from literature come to mind in this connection, as, for instance, the Flying Dutchman, the Pied Piper or Rat Catcher of Hamelin, and the Water Man or Elfin King of folk songs; music is seen as the lure of maidens into “their water or forest-kingdoms.”106 In Hebrew literature I have also identified King David who, as a famous musician and shepherd, later went on to defeat Goliath, the champion of the enemy, and rule a small kingdom. Such environments represent wilderness in their purity of spirit. They are stories with a paradoxical theme that highlight the power music has to convey women to unconscious depths where the spirit, or logos, and nature are still one. Their archetypes have mythological parallels that make them correspondingly impersonal or supra-personal and appear next to their personal forms as in the Indian story of the king and the magician illustrated above, what Jung referred to as the upper and lower animus.107 Hence, as an important and primordial form to disaffected youngsters and to overly-sensual people in general, music can be a way of lifting them out of their repression and help them develop their conscious functions. To quote Emma Jung:

“This abduction by the spirit to cosmic-musical regions, remote from the world of consciousness, forms a counterpart to the conscious mentality of women, which is usually directed, only toward very immediate and personal things. On the one hand, it may be no more than a lapse into unconsciousness, a sinking away into a sort of sleeping twilight state, a slipping back into nature, equivalent to regressing to a former level of consciousness, and therefore useless, even dangerous. On the other hand it may mean a genuine religious experience and then, of course, it is of the highest value.”

This I can relate to since I have seen the power of my own music. It boggles me why I haven’t exercised this ability more although I can answer myself here and say that intuition tends to drive my need and prowess. How often I have drawn young and old towards me ceding amorous wafts into my path even if none of these encounters provided long-term sustenance. Yet there is a grimmer side to this power too, the prophetic power to unravel the darkness and to destroy a shadowy existence. That means the destruction of neurosis, the destruction of culture that would deny its natural origins. The spirit that gives logic to such events is always humanity defying extinction in its technological and archetypal drive to freedom, a misnomer for survival. It is always recreating nature in its own image. As much as this is Jung’s spiritual renaissance – the lifting of women from unconscious repression into the male world of logic - to me it appears that women are still being made into the image of men.

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Reading Jung has been a refreshing experience. Women generally are practical and applied.108 It is only when they embark on new mental applications that the animus comes into play. They wouldn’t normally have the thirst for knowledge or judgment; her childlike or primitive character prefers rather the impulsive wish or imagined scenario.

106 Jung, Emma, op. cit., pp34-36 107 Ibid., pp36-38 108 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p16

Where man may be objective the woman prefers to make assumptions. This is the primitive stereotype that has carried throughout patriarchal traditions, and it has only been relatively recent that female individualism has broken through this patriarchal barrier in general. I have already elicited on their importance for early Christianity. Yet even so-called libertarian movements harbour old religious biases based on the general socio-economic role that women play in the development of human culture. And they needn’t be religious either. For instance, Proudhon believed that men and women had equal rights and duties, as an equality of respect, yet as we know, women he considered inferior. (Quoted in George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: A Biographical Study, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956, p34)109 This can be understood in light of his view of individualism as being foremost, and that society follows the individual,110 a point I actually concord with. However, if you remember, I state that leaders are produced in society through the collective consciousness of the people to stimulate unconscious archetypes in the individual. Proudhon though is quick to say that the individual human is potentially rational, progressive and just, and will always triumph over instinct and spontaneity, which as Jung pointed out, is the modus operandi of the female. Proudhon was incredibly influential among socialist and anarchist circles that spanned the Atlantic, women excluded. As an atheist he firmly believed in justice, closely associated with equality but more to do with respect. As such all men should receive according to their worth yet every individual is the judge of right and wrong. This cedes authority as something intrinsic or simply subjective. Indeed, Peter Marshall says of him as disguising Christianity under this ethos. It would suggest that there is a metaphysic in his comprehension of individual freedom albeit the female is still anchored in the patriarchal traditions of the time. Later anarchists like Emma Goldman would fly the flag of anarcha-feminism in the 20th century. She likewise stated that the revolutionary process must occur in the individual mind as much as in society.111 As more women fill once traditional men’s roles in developed cultures so we are seeing the rise of female individualism through the psychological development of the animus which can only happen as social reform. It was during the ‘swinging sixties’ that the second wave of anarcha- feminists maintained that anarchism was the logical consistent expression of feminism. Psychologists may argue that it has given over to extreme forms of femininity elsewhere described by Jung as the inflated animus. Yet a closer look shows that the intellectual element of the movement juxtaposes the continued presence and dominance of patriarchy both in the State and family. Goldman was very much aware of her own need for sexual freedom which she expresses as freedom per se located in the individual control of one’s own body and life. Her radical critique of everyday living is that the personal is a representation of the political. Such said, the anarcha-feminist method of direct action is independent from any other philosophy but shares a common anarchist view towards decentralisation and federalism. And likewise, as a staunch fighter and voice for feminist rights, her observation that an affinity-based anarchism provided the foundation for feminism was vindicated in the years before the Spanish Civil War which saw anarchism as a successful social alternative in Spain and especially Catalonia. This is supported by Penny Kornegger who contends that the practice and theory of feminists has always been in alignment with anarchy. A deeper study would investigate the reality of female cooperation within successful anarchist communities like Spain.

Peter Marshall’s in depth studies of anarchism and libertarianism juxtaposes two schools of thought, of that between the individualists and the socialists. In fact he balances out the argument and mentions that in a society without government the tyranny of public opinion could just as well replace the oppression of law, as Godwin was inclined to believe.112 And as much as this is a fair point Marshall always drags the argument back to the role of self-responsibility and the means to curb a laissez-faire attitude to freedom and equality. He points out that writers like George Orwell observed early on the authoritarian strain in pacifist anarchists, probably during his spell in the Spanish Civil War, which enforces my point above, that it can be used as a propaganda tool towards coercing the masses. (See Orwell, ‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’ (1947), Collected Essays, p432) Both Tolstoy, and his close admirer, Gandhi, both elicited such overtones and influence

109 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p49 110 Ibid., p248-250 111 Ibid., p556-7 112 Ibid., p650; as I write this in a time of political uncertainty in the UK it is incredibly interesting how the two sides swing to and fro in the quest to gain power at the expense of the opposition in the Brexit saga. In the background the real issues of climate change rage on as extreme weather patterns continue to humiliate human progress. All in all as the capitalist cakes gets ever smaller so the political field gets ever wider and the global reaction seems to be contagious with outbreaks in South America, Asia and the United States. If there is a spiritual response to be found here I argue that the real battle is being waged psychologically between leaders and the general public, and that between leaders themselves. It seems to be raising the logos of the common man that hails to a period of the old Greek democratic model in which Socrates is seen as the stalwart of one- man rule that ultimatelyhad him executed. Brexit on the other hand has invoked the power of the law under the guise of public opinion and threatens to revolutionise government protocol itself. over the masses. But I think that, though credible, Marshall fails to see the metaphysical reality that binds true anarchists into a collective whole. A fairer statement may be to say that leaders are chosen for their libertarian moral views more as a means to hope than as an immediate reality; in the case of Tolstoy and Gandhi for their representation as working examples of anarchism in progress. The contradictory idiosyncrasies so apparent in evolved souls such as the aforementioned persons show, as Orwell also points out, is that there is just as much a powerful instinctive urge towards conformity as there are to rules and regulations that allow for “a certain amount of eccentricity”.113 In other words, too much freedom isn’t good for society as a whole. An example of this are dictatorships that succeed and prolong at the ultimate expense of the public; the recent tributes to the death of the African leader Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are so mixed that it shows society to be much more complex than a set of rules could ever deal with; such leaders are chosen mainly for their charisma and ability to bind the masses against a common foe.114 Mugabe championed an anti-Western stance that made him both protected and hunted as a series of failed assination attempts proved. However, no matter how much a leader is depicted as a common enemy him or herself I believe Marshall correctly states that the greater goodness of man is inherent in social morality and not the individual.115 In other words, the lower soul and the collective consciousness have an essential duty to play here no matter how sensual it can become. And it was Bakunin who established the revolutionary potential of the masses that Marx dismissed as reactionary ‘rural idiots’; the lumpenproletariat or the marginal classes were likewise considered intellectually empty. As Marshall says, the great revolutions of the 20th century have vindicated Bakunin rather than Marx in predominantly agricultural ways; the lumpenproletariat of students, women, ethnic minorities and the unemployed in capitalist societies themselves are also proving to be the most rebellious. And of recent we may like to add schoolchildren who across the world are affecting political change in their protests for climate change mitigation.116

The issue is cultural - ingrained behaviour that depicts more a development of ethics, for good or bad, rather than public opinion which always seems to be shortlived. Why I believe patriarchy is so much a cornerstone of human society is because the question always comes down to survival and the instinct to generate conscious motives towards the will to “increase and multiply”. Is this the pride of humanity creating God in its own image? It hails to prehistoric man that itself reflects a history of memory in the Bible. But to go beyond this racial memory is to return to natural providence and the expedients of nature in a pre-Adam and Eve epoch that emphasizes more than ever the current over-population of the human race. Human culture as such is based upon a shrinking environment and the means to mitigate this, and we seem to have hit a milestone. The alienation of a fallen humanity from nature is firmly and technologically placing its trajectory onto the stars. It may be the human will that is taking us there but its actions seem to be more default than not for the survival of God’s second book - nature. Governments never really talk about overpopulation; childbirth seems to be the guarantee that any conflicts can continue indefinitely. Whether there is any freedom to act is a matter of opinion. But as I say, individuals are products of the masses in their need for leaders; it’s only inevitable that those who wish to go beyond culture will meet androgyny with opposition from a populace that sees sex as the panacea to its social problems. The ethical stance would be to reduce our impact on the planet and as I say, governments prefer the default solution of a technologic utopia that defines its own path in how to get there; it’s rare for governments to act with any prophetic vision other than as an exigent measure towards its own survival. Androgyny on the other hand is asking us to be Godlike and to die to Creation; I have always maintained that Creation comes first, then God. God here is the bridge back to Creation. Seen in this light the offspring of Adam and Eve have created God in their own image. My point being that true Christianity and most other religions will have this apocalyptic element to return us to Creation ex nihilo. In the Augustine and biblical sense though he would be referring to the imago Dei which, when taken at face value, is something immutable; it is Jung’s impersonal form that cannot be integrated. Yes it represents the origins of existence

113 See my appendices in The Carob Pod: An Anthropological Guide to Permaculture, ‘Was Gandhi a forerun- ner for the modern-day environmental movement, in particularly addressing 3 criterion for this perspective, namely: A “true” Christian; an implicit green philosophy; the religious use of politics’, available at SLP’s web- site Market page www.southlondonpermaculture.com/ 114 Cf. ‘Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s strongman ex-President, dies aged 95’ found https://www.bbc.com//news/amp/world-africa-49604152 115 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p651-2 116 One of the leading lights to emerge in the modern environmental narrative is Greta Thunberg. “Thunberg has inspired a number of her school-aged peers in what has been described as "The Greta effect". In response to her outspoken stance, various politicians have also acknowledged the need to focus on climate change.” (Nevett, Joshua (3 May 2019). ‘The Greta effect? Meet the schoolgirl climate warriors’, BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2019); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg that, when scientifically interpreted, is actually in accord with a religious one in which we originate from nothing (ex nihilo). It is the unconsciousness of humanity to maintain this bridge in which we find, guarding it in zealous fashion not unlike Three Billy Goats Gruff, a troll ready to eat us up. Only through wit or the higher soul can the goats individually fool the troll in order to find richer pastures on the other side. More importantly there is a communal aspect of their abilities to comprehend each other on a lower level of the soul which indicates a subconscious, if not psychical understanding of each others needs. Without doing a Jungian-style analysis on this Norwegian tale this is a story about survival, but one must assume that a deep racial memory exists regarding the existence of wild meadows beyond the troll and this entails an unknown. Unless we consciously raise ourselves through our higher soul or will, we are always governed by our stomachs and our sensual behaviour. If not humanity would die from carnal starvation (extinction), as the story depicts. He reinvents nature (de nihilo) to keep himself alive (technology) but ultimately there is not enough grass for everyone (a shrinking environment). But what really keeps humanity alive is this (higher) knowledge of greener pastures, a vision of an unknown that burns inwardly. It provides the hope to allow us to return to the Unknown on the other side of the bridge. Not to put a fine point on it, I am not saying that God is here represented as a voracious killer of men, rather that we create the image of God as a consumer on the basis of our own hunger. Had we died to nature then we would equally return to Creation as this great unknown. But the desire to know (pride) what this unknown is develops our will and higher soul to navigate the bridge (God). It is at this moment that Augustine warns of the need for humility. Driven by our sensual bodies (the social consciousness) the unconscious is always providing the archetypes for our continued endeavours like a carrot (greener pastures) dangling in front of our eyes (archetypes). Maybe this is a real analogy since we spend much of the time looking at the end of our own noses and never quite focus on where this projection is coming from. We would have to selflessly go beyond (predestination) into the supra-personal or super-divine aspects of our unconsciousness to discover this enlightenment of sorts. In the tale above, the three goats achieve success and little more is said about them. Nietcsche’s ‘God is dead’ and the superman ascends into the realms of Creation ex nihilo. In no substantial form he becomes nothing. Whatever Adam and Eve was to Augustine I can personally vouch that not even they knew what they were like before they left the Garden of Eden. They certainly weren’t genderised.

As I say, androgyny does not appear to be conducive to survival; the apocalyptic message is a spiritual exhortation to death or human extinction through the perfection of humanity to return to God, with God, the Unconscious. By default then, wars are not fought over the spiritual quest for corporeal emancipation so much, indicated as the will of the higher soul, but the cultural stagnation that overwhelms the masses into blind conformity and repression for their lack of freedom to have this knowledge; war has a materialistic motive and this was no more obvious than in the Christian persecutions by the mob who envied and made them the butt of failed economic policies whilst Christianity thrived at the communal level. I find it ironic then, but understandable, that Augustine also used the State to conduct his own persecutions against the Donatist church towards blind conformity; the paradox of living in the Roman Empire awaiting the Parousia (Heaven) was the Christian way in a material world that was only going to be fleeting. But this faith was juxtaposed against the growing influence of the Church and the removal of class and education barriers that had made Chrisitianity a more acceptable religion especially amongst Roman soldiers, whom on occasion refused to kill Christians.117 As Paul Johnson says, the intellectual maturity of the age of Origen made a direct confrontation with the State inevitable, and this a time before its conversion to Christianity. Being successful and dynamic meant that alternative successive Roman emperors had either to accept Christianity or exterminate it. Only after Rome’s conversion and having stepped into its imperial shoes did Christianity put pay to this optimism, and pessimism ultimately followed; the Christian nationalism that gave context to Augustine’s motives a century and a half after Origen was undoubtedly the unconscious stirrings of his higher soul and somewhat objective rationale. He may have justified his campaign as an exhortation to unity but underlying all of his despotic behaviour was the drive to develop his theological vindication for a return to Eden, at whatever cost. It is no wonder that so many bishops following Origen, including Jerome, wanted to put the final nail in the coffin of marriage but couldn’t quite discount Jesus’ own standing on the matter.118

Even if Augustine mentioned the existence of hermaphrodites in society I am surprised he didn’t continue the theme of androgyny throughout his writings. Indeed his readers are encouraged to celebrate these ‘anomalies’ as fashioned by God in the overall beauty of Creation.119 (Augustine, City of God, trans. Gerald Walsh, S.J. and Grace Monohan, O.S.U. (New

117 Paul Johnson, op. cit., p73 118 The ambiguity in Mark 10 is plain to see. In 10:6 Jesus is quoted as saying that in the beginning God made them male and female. And then in 10:8-10 he states that what God has joined together let no-one separate. My expounding above in the need to understanding God as created in man’s image highlights the mysterious deeper message of Christianity. 119 Teri Merrick, op. cit., p3

York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1952) Bk. XVI, Chp. 8, 502) Androgyny though, was the implicit message of the Church. As such women were required to renounce their sex on entering chastity and to develop their faith in order to offset the effect of eating of the Tree of Knowledge. But because the Chrisitan mission was inherently patriarchal, men on the other hand who pursued the same path were encouraged to develop their higher will through reason and authority; the Church still needed leaders. This was no more apparent as when Constantine converted the Roman Empire. With a Caesaro-papalist flavour to his rule he wanted to create a kind of State Church in which he saw himself as a bishop ordained by God to oversee those outside it.120 A megalomaniac on the one hand and an eccentric on the other, Eusebius says of him as taking some of Origen’s grandiose ideas and secularising them. In fact he placed himself as the 13th apostle. In spite of this he gave freedom to worship without persecution to all pagan cults. As I say, Christianity fitted into its new imperial shoes. A century earlier Tertullian was writing how “We are forever making intercession for the emperors. We pray for them a long life, a secure rule, a safe home, brave armies… We know that the great force which threatens the whole world, the end of the the age itself with its menace of hideous sufferings, is delayed by the respite which the Roman Empire means for us… Caesar is more ours than yours, appointed as he is by our God.” The motive swings between materialism on the one hand, and spirituality on the other. The Christian bishop would have been torn between the two, trying to come to terms with his own unconscious stirrings and the imminent Parousia. Roman customs and law were very much a part of the Christian way. And as much as it tolerated peoples from all ilks of life homosexuality and hermaphrodism were no more different than from other sexual temptations of the materialistic machine that preys upon the spiritual person, continually dragging at his spirit. The will to power demands that a spiritual compromise is made in the quest for freedom of knowledge and self-determination. As much as it is an inability to deal with one’s own higher will in the face of environmental stipulations, it is also the male recognition of one’s unconscious femininity and the need to evolve, the theme of which preoccupied Augustine until his dying days.

It is obvious on a metaphysical level that conflict arises first out of duality, and hence culture is born from this temptation to knowledge, which is why the Church constitutes free will only in sin. If you like, Adam and Eve, having crossed the bridge initially as the Androgyn, having looked back saw then that their personal God is a consumer, which meant that they should populate the Earth in order to bear the weight of their material sin. The imago Dei is now an unfathomable distant memory located in the unconscious, but the only way of recovering this image is if we are guided by the unconscious towards androgyny. A matriarchal society would suggest that humanity first lamented the loss of natural providence in an unadapted world, but as it became obvious that their survival was under constant threat this hankering after fertility and abundance technologises the environment and creates it in man’s image. The fertility of women is thus upheld, but through the continuing need to develop a conscious solution to a shrinking environment the supra-divine aspect of the anima in men is subsequently repressed into an unconscious form so as to become impersonal. I am referring to a period millions of years ago. This doesn’t have to represent a linear development, but could easily be seen as a cyclical pattern that emerges every time there is an environmental crisis, as there is today, only now it is global and not place-specific. Such a re-emergence of matriarchal development and the female goddess preceded the Neolithic Age and agriculture that would ultimately change the form of man into the image we see today. That is, the female is also seen as a technological tool for the production of children, as such indicating that there appears to be oscillations of matriarchal/patriarchal development during times of scarcity. The super-divine aspect of the Mother Goddess represents periods of uncoordinated, wild existence, whilst the opposite phenomenon of a Biblical Father God, whether Christian or pagan, the objective, rational and technological readaptation of the natural world that creates both nature and women through a man’s eyes.

There is something to be said about the need for comformity, driven in the main, by the mundane requirement to impose a material order in a socio-political world. These are the ambiguities that faced the early forefathers, eschatologically coming to terms with the desire to spiritually die to God’s creation. Wanting to get back to the Garden of Eden would then require transcending the duality of sexual relations and not emphasizing one over the other. If anything it would be a reclaimation of our humanness in the image of God in which our conscious and unconscious sides walk again hand in hand, inseparable. The growing disparity though between a materialistic lifestyle and a spiritual one continued to grow throughout the ages. Teri Merrick notes how far science had come since the turning away during the Middle Ages of an Augustinian view of knowledge to a more materialistic one of Aristotle. Hermaphrodites here were instead seen more as a defect in God’s intended order of things. He examples the 16th century anatomist Jean Riolan the younger in which the study of medicine should be premised upon regularly occurring natural forms and not anomalies.121 (Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 113ff.) He is quoted here

120 Paul Johnson, op. cit., pp68-70 121 Ibid. for chastising a fellow member in celebrating diversity. The rigidity of the scientific viewpoint gives vindication to the general shift in human relations that in themselves proved pivotal for the dissolution of the religious viewpoint too; its dynamic and diverse origins had already fallen foul to the papal rigour of the 2nd millinium. Conformity in the image of man ceased to become a mystery but more a machine.

If I am allowed to then, maybe I should be looking at those religious anarchists who played a predominant role in forming a conservative view towards the role of women, as the apologetic the Church desired in a disputatious age in which wars were stirring the very fabric of society and allowing for the radical movement of peoples between continents. In this we can take a second look towards Leo Tolstoy, a devout Christian. Like Proudhon, he saw the principal role of women as motherhood. His own wife bore him 13 children whilst a married serf on his farm also gave him a child.122 He wrote that “Every woman… who refrains from childbirth without refraining from sexual relations, is a whore. And however fallen a woman may be, if she… performs the best and highest service in life - fulfils the will of God - and no one ranks above her.”123 To him, bearing children was the highest fulfilment to the will of God. Yet he also saw women as dangerous temptresses who misguided men from their own spiritual paths. And this falls in line with his religious guilt since towards the end of his life he saw celibacy, like Augustine, as the best foot forward. Sex had become a great evil, and he only defended it through marriage. In this Peter Marshall compares him to St. Paul whose own sexual misgivings highlight the undeveloped ethics and ordinances of an early Christian movement still pluralistic in its outlook and yet conventionally discriminative. Yet as I say, I cannot help see Augustine here as a role model for his behaviour. Tolstoy must also have firmly believed in the sanctity of marriage because, as Augustine implicates, it is the bona of sexual union. Joshua M. Evans points out in reference to Pope Pius X1 and the context of concupiscence, that the bona are “the law of marriage by which the fruitfulness of nature is adorned and the evil of incontinence is restrained.”124 (Casti connubii, 97; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_pxi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html, 10) Since one’s natural powers are not perfect the good of sacramentum is understood to grace the individual and raise his soul above human isolation towards God.125 (Ibid. 41) In this he perfects his natural powers, his will, or as I understand it, is enjoined into the soul-force of the Church. It is ritual per se. It also equates to Augustine’s concept of marriage as societas. Societas is understood as a companionship and harmony between the couple emphasizing the importance of friendship. (David G. Hunter, ‘Augustinian Pessimism? A New Look at Augustine’s Teaching on Sex, Marriage and Celibacy’, Augustinian Studies 25 (1994), 160) As such the sin of concupiscience has its proper place here in the sacramentum of marriage, limiting the nature of sexual desire (libido) to a role of devotion (Ibid. 162) whilst at the same time it deals with the greater temporal issues of an expanding empire and Church. The higher will is thus the driver at the wheel ensuring man does not fall any further into sin.

It is arguable though if this conditioning behaviour is the basis of why individuals feel guilt as many of Augustine’s opponents claim it to be. The question really does centre upon the true religious experience of the individual quest to draw towards God as a transcendent reality through the cultivation of the unconscious. Hence the importance of sacramentum is to accommodate the true place of spirit. This was in contrary to the materialistic claims of many of Christianity’s supporters, I iterate, whose “huge litters, with red cloaks and fat bodies, a file of eunuchs walking in front; they have not so much lost husbands but seek them…”, as Jerome was quoted as saying. The material objectivity of the elite classes, especially from the time of Constantine and the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, emphasizes this point further. Paul Johnson states that in the Sardica Canon the rich and well-connected entered the Church purely for material gain.126 The canon officially stated that no one was to be ordained unless they rise through the ranks. It proved ultimately ineffective. Instead the State pushed their nominees into key posts. St. Ambrose, for instance, was baptised, became a cleric and then ordained as the bishop of Milan all within eight days. Infact the list of famous leaders included St. Augustine who was ordained to the presbyterate from a position of layman, as well as St. Jerome and Origen. No matter how established the Church was in its own religious functions it had basically secularised much of the State’s services already and so Constantine found it no problem on his death bed to convert over to Christianity as the universal fix that would bind the Empire. On top of this the Church would come to succeed and further develop the codes of law during the barbarian occupation of the West from the 6th century onward, adding to the already established administrative

122 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p366-7 123 Leo, Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do (1886), p70, English, Open Source found at https://archive.org/stream/WhatThenMustWeDo-English-LeoTolstoy/whatthenmustwedo_djvu.txt 124 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., op. cit., p63 125 Ibid., p65 126 Paul Johnson, op. cit., pp77-78 machine of the empire; legalism had come to be its natural inheritance.127 Thus Constantine had already used the vehicle of the Church to grant or retract fiscal privileges. Its internal affairs were lubricated with bribes whilst the phenomenon of the Church had become a two-tier system of worship. On the one hand it could have been no more than civic, replacing the now ineffective official emperor worship; on the other it still had a deep religiosity about it. Tertullian (155-240), writing a century earlier, was no more aware of this. A puritan, he endorsed the strict view that once baptised, a Christian, on threat of losing his or her office, must abstain from serious sin.128 This would vindicate God’s will. But what he couldn’t endorse was the Church deciding it had power to grant the remission of sins after baptism, including adultery and apostasy. In fact Paul Johnson quotes him as being the first Protestant in which he appealed to the unspiritual ‘lordship’ and the ‘tyranny’ of the clerics. A woman, he said, who thus spoke with the spirit, had more authority than a ‘falsely’ elected bishop who occupied an empty office. As with Luther, Tertullian read Romans; the spirit is unforgiving in mortal sin and judges without partiality. Materialism, in its objective to secure material privilege and comfort, was the means to obfuscate the need to evolve whilst the mystery of the soul was left to the devout individual to experience.

What I find psychologically interesting is the male relationship and development of his feminine anima as central to religious institution and the hitherto said role of sacramentum. In the aknowledgment of being filled with spirit it may throw more light as to why the Church upheld hermaphrodite and homosexual tendencies before the introduction of papal edicts in later centuries. The theme was well recounted in the Greek and Roman classics. Frequently men bedded men. It was quite acceptable in conventional patriarchal society as an expression of what Jung would call an inflated anima. As I say, I believe the inability to deal with one’s own spirituality, a higher soul for the development of their unconscious side, conduces towards a tendency of homosexuality in a materialistic world – the more materialistic one’s environment is the more that unconscious femininity or masculinity will want concrete expression within it. When Emma Jung talked about recognizing this phenomenon and then acknowledging its own power to re-identify the person it embodies in effect I can only assume she must have been referring to the power of the lower soul, the sensual body and the herd instinct, to overwhelm the individual with unconscious archetypes to behave in a particular way. This is convention as much as patriarchy is. For this reason I have always said that there is a fine line between homosexuality and spirituality, hence the predicament of a Church veering down a materialistic road for its clergy. I also say that a perfect environment creates a perfect person. A materialistic environment will create a materialistic person if that individual is not being protected fom its excesses. Hence it would suggest that the unconscious archetypes we experience are very much instinctively generated from the environment we live in. When we look at the ancient siting of monasteries at the fringes of the known world, more often in areas of wilderness and segregated from the opposite sex, it vindicates the point that spiritual individuals need to protect themselves from these unconscious surfacings other than those generated from the experience of Mother Nature itself. Hence these ‘sacred places’ naturally cultivated celibacy and a tendency towards androgyny. At the time of writing the Pope of the Catholic Church is at loggerheads to allowing conjugal relations of priests in the Amazon due to a shortage of celibate men.129 In a new book the retired Pope Benedict XVI warns Francis of relaxing these ancient traditions and priestly rules. Pope Francis is seen as more progressive but in many ways it deals with an age-old problem since the birth of Christianity, which is the need to curb materialistic influences among ‘weak’ clergy. This would be no more obvious that in those sees where the wealthy elite have sway over proceedings; Christianity was born from the poverty of its adherents. The question arises whether in such modern milieus where the Church still provides an invaluable service to the poor, like the Amazon, can these conservative views really stand the test of time?

I induce my own spiritual growth through celibacy, whether intentionally or not, with a view that maybe I will discover my future spiritual partner; it looks increasingly unlikely as I continue to relate my feminine side with Mother Nature. And so the temptation is always there as much as the will to power is in a patriarchal world. It had conduced to the upholding of a patristic Father figure in the Church as now the woman’s masculine side sought greater reconciliation with her unconscious; for women to assert political or economic clout was in the main unheard of until the not-so-distant past, let alone publish any works or speak out openly on sexual matters. But for a dynamic period only, women had found hope in the new religion of Christianity to voice their deeper spiritual desires towards their own transcendent capabilities. And this was vindicated in the early centuries of Christianity in its procurement of converts and women clergy. But all this was relatively short-lived as the continued materialistic repression of women in society led to their ‘non-development’ and had exacerbated the literary air of their genetic incompleteness, although I must express the issue here that cherished relations between sexual couples belie this point. But it also indicates how far the Church has come in keeping up with modern times, in allowing marriage between same-sex couples by overturning traditional laws and exploring the deeper voice of

127 Ibid. p133cf 128 Ibid., pp80-81 129 https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51086626 sacramentum. Indeed Pius XI lamented over a purely natural-level ethic of sex and marriage as a kind of “pedagogic naturalism”.130 (Ad Salutem, 35-38. Published as: Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XI on “Saint Augustine”, trans. Vatican Press (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1930, 38) Pius can only be implicating the true religious mindset for he goes on to say that it is incredibly shortsighted (Casti connubii, 101) for anyone trying to overcome the guilt of concupiscence to think marriage is a procreative method of a merely human institution for “gratifying in one way or another a vehement impulse”. (Ibid. 49)

I beg to differ then, what exactly is the logos? Materially it defines our insatiable desire for power and knowledge, spiritually the will to evolve towards the Unknown. Through the eyes of Catholicism it emphasizes this division between scientia and sapientia. Up until recent times rational objective science and politics may only appear to be a male characteristic in a patriarchal society. Yet if man upholds his unconscious feminine qualities within an institution like the Church, which succeeded and augmented the late Roman Empire, then what we may be seeing is the wellspring of curiosity and feeling that would normally be the woman’s prerogative. Bear in mind that many of the forefathers of Christianity had already inherited the metaphysical enquiry of early classical Greek philosophy. In this case it is not so much knowledge but individualism that must be the means for the unconscious to manifest towards spiritual emancipation. And as we have seen, dualism went some way to explaining the effects of the opposites. Yet if we are to understand this religiously then duality has its place here too, as the vehicle that will ensure transcendent knowledge of the unknown continues to filter down rationally into the lower realms of the gendered soul for public opinion to either accept or reject. Materially this has led to the rise of applied science, technology and politics through the libertarian environment of an intellectual class which would later claim to have done away with the religious repression of thought and deed during the end of the Middle Ages. This has lead, in more modern times, the fight for equal rights to consciously express this element, as the freedom to knowledge, whether that be sapientia or scientia. It says much about the development of the Church as a centralised system of politics and wealth which advertently gave rise to Protestantism. At any rate, such individualism has also fed the development of psychology through the increased inability of the common person to deal with the public repression of the unconscious will that represents human culture per se. Ultimately this raises the issue as to why society is becoming more polarised in the wake of increased methods of controlling it. The raising of a material consciousness through the rise of individualism has left a vacuum in its lack of faith and erosion of ethics. Faith, in its need to address the spiritual, anticipates the need for a vision and this governs its ethics.

I previously alluded to the idea that Creation comes first, and what I seem to be defining here is that our approach to such can be two-tiered, either by acknowledging God through the bridge of sapientia, or by foregoing the bridge altogether and instead technologically reinventing nature without the need to visualize the Unknown on the other side. In the tale of Billy Goat Gruff we see that the troll represents fear which drives the soul into the material realms, but the higher will that wants to confront the troll masterminds a non-confrontational element. In this it can be considered predestined. Admittedly the third goat knocks the troll into the stream who is then carried away, but this can also be interpreted as Jung’s need to identify and address the personal archetypes of an undeveloped consciousness before finally moving towards the supra-personal aspect of our psyche. And then we see that a combination of minds represented by the 3 goats proves that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This can be interpreted as Kropotkin’s herd instinct and the collective raising of reason in order to solutionate the problem. This is not unlike the Church in its expounding of sapientia for the masses. Yet as much as this may make sense to some of you, for me it is no more obvious then that of when Jesus said ‘Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’ in lieu of the Parousia (Second Coming) and the Resurrection of the Elect. This exhortation to evolve through spiritual transcendence is the true religious experience, not material liberation. How often we have observed the atheistic accusation towards the Church as the cause of war. The reality is often hidden from the materialistic mindset whose guilt seeks to blame religion per se. Individualism exists across the board of society and it is the spiritual quest of the individual to find his or her own path in view of their own unconscious development.

I will talk about the role of the State in people’s lives a little later on; suffice to say real power and influence can only be the prerogative of the higher soul and not its material counterpart that seeks to dwell among the vying masses for its control. Elsewhere I have highlighted the rarity of cultural revolutions in which its own vision is sustainable. As I say, evolution is mainly the preorogative of individuals. On this last point one is reminded that at the height of Greek classical culture in the 4th and 3rd ce. BCE science had flourished under Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle et al which itself had to deal with the meaning of democracy and the value of public opinion. It became a disputatious age in which it never quite fulfilled its philosophical potential to release the individual from Godwin’s “tyranny of public opinion”. Nevertheless, it has become the model for which Western society is built upon, the unfulfilled ideallic balance between autonomy and

130 Paul Harrison, op. cit., p51 said public opinion. We are reminded always of the Socratic jibe at democracy; “the one who knows” was more a metaphysical quest than an authoritarian materialist pursuit.

This brings me back to the individuality in the Church and moreover, the overpowering influence of one particular bishop who’s relationship with his mother was penned in one of the most influential books in Christendom, My Confessions. Matthew V. Brown points out that Augustine, describing his mother, used the masculine adjective ‘virile’.131 The thinking behind it and his vow to celibacy was to hold sway in the Catholic Church until relatively recently. In fact his own virility was to play a part in the decision to lead a far more ascetic life than his mother anticipated even if she was a devout Christian.132 She understood the call of nature and rather preferred Augustine to be baptised much later in life. Without repeating myself too much he took a concubine for 15 years whom he had to let go off when the time to marry came around. The 10-year old was still not of age, and by the time she reached 12 years old Augustine had already felt that his true love had been wrenched from him which inscribed in him the sense that his sexuality and the carnal flesh were passions that required wholly subduing, and only through celibacy. It reinforced his belief in the Fall and the role that women played here. This was the current which flowed throughout the Middle Ages. It would be a while before Augustine disengaged his Neo-Platonism from Christianity as such sharing his understanding of the division of the flesh and spirit with his Manichean roots, and ultimately lead one to confirm that the basic physical appetites of the "flesh" and by extension human sexuality, “was, at best, regarded as an unfortunate but functional necessity of procreation and, at worst, identified as the efficient cause of the Fall of mankind through the seduction of Adam by Eve.”133 Augustine goes on to conjecture in his Literal Commentary on Genesis why women of small intelligence live by the impulses of the flesh than by superior reason of the spirit. In his Pauline exegesis he sees this as the cause of why man is made in the image of God, and women in the image of man.

1 Corinthians 11:7 King James Version (KJV) 7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. I consider this a very interesting juncture in the ethos of the Church. Not least because I attribute to the individual the instinctive awareness of the self and to society the greater cause of freedom and equality that generations since have fought over – the principle motive behind the anarchist sentiment. Ultimately one always falls back upon their instinct where emotions and feelings run riot in order to reaffirm their belief in freedom when social movements struggle against the tide of authoritarianism. As I say, Kropotkin also defined evolution when the herd has reason to strengthen its presence against predation. When women are viewed in this light as nature is understood to be, then we see that predation happens at the intellectual level; women are to be subdued and assimilated into the status quo under the prevailing patriarchal system. Women had little choice then other than to affirm the objective rational of the masses where certain protections were already in place. Undoubtedly there would have been fraternities for women to share those concerns outside the political system of power.

Liz Vestal points out that it has given rise to much of the misogyny in the interpretation of Augustine’s writings for it says that woman are divided into two categories, one homo and the other femina, the latter of which means that they do not participate in the imago Dei.134 Maybe something of Augustine’s Neo-Platonism comes to mind here, posthumously in regard to Proudhon’s equality of respect, because he explains that whereas women are associated with the scientia, the active mind, men are associated with the masculine part of the mind, sapientia, in reference to the “meditative mind of the wisdom of God”.135 E. Ann Matter in clarifying this point further says that, “Scientia always leads the mind back to Creation, so only sapientia can truly image God. It is this distinction, Augustine believed, that Paul had in mind.” I have already personally interpreted this so that the former refers to de nihilo in substance, and the latter the vision beyond the bridge which, for all intents and purposes, is Creation ex nihilo. I like to think that I am correcting Catholic hermeneutics here and redefining the image of God as the immutable Unknown. I would also come to understand that the ‘active’ part

131 Matthew V. Brown, ‘The "Woman" of Augustine of Hippo’, Priscilla Papers vol. 4, no. 4 (Autumn 1990) 132 Liz Vestal, ‘Augustine and Women: It’s Not As Bad As You Think’ found at https://www.academia.edu/13061943/Augustine_of_Hippo_The_Feminist; Matter, E. Ann. ‘Christ, God and woman in the thought of St Augustine’, Augustine and His Critics, edited by Robert Dodaro and George Lawless (London: Routledge, 2000), p167. 133 Matthew V. Brown, op. cit. 134 Liz Vestal, op. cit. 135 Matter, E. A., op. cit., p170 of the mind represents enquiry into the material universe, and the ‘masculine’ part to mean the consciousas opposed to unconscious application of thought. You can see in this how prejudice and gender-laden is the language of the time. This isn’t so far from Jung’s portrayal of the masculine and feminine aspects of the mind. It equates with the idea that through logos or reason man is more evolved than the feeling, wishing, imaginative and creative aspect of the woman’s personality. It is a utilitarian view of women common to pagan culture, such as evidenced by the distinctions of Greek culture whereby the social function of women denoted their class division.136 Women were for men, a procreative but necessary tool, valued neither for her intellect nor the sexual pleasure she gave. As I say, these were the Gnostic influences coming into the early church. Bearing in mind Augustine’s celibacy, his writings make often reference to his criticisms of women from commentaries on sexuality, but not the women themselves in who he was in continual spiritual pastoralism with. (Van Bavel, ‘Augustine’s Views on Women’, 15) He credited women with the ability to develop their logos, as such his own mother would be that role model. Brcause women are then only a part of the image of God, some feminists interpret his writings by denoting the image of God as a rational existence, rather than being defined by one’s body. But as Liz Vestal affirms, sex should not determine one’s faith in God.137

Emma Jung seems to confirm this, and more to the point Christian theology tried to explain the psychological aspect of human relationships whilst it was still married to the metaphysical venture. As a great thinker Augustine tried to answer for the times. For one, his own profound rational analysis did not allow him to enjoy the carnal desires of the bed after his conversion and so advocated, like St. Paul, celibacy over marriage. Mathew Brown points out that it is noteworthy Augustine did not consider the act of procreation itself to be sinful, allowing the possibility of "a stronger appreciation of marriage than... some other Church Fathers."138 (Elizabeth A. Clark, WOfTUn in the Early Church, Message of the Fathers of the Church, vol. 13, (Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1983), p44) Instead he felt that it could just be avoided. As with Jerome it is interesting to review how the passions tore at Augustine, especially in the company of high- society women, to such an extent that “the conjugal union seemed to forbid the very enjoyment of the only purpose women were permitted.” It reinforced his belief that the bed was lustful. In his Literal Commentary on Genesis, metaphorically the woman is imagined walking behind the man, barefoot and pregnant. Augustine’s reasoning is quite provocative - women can be for no other reason if not as a 'helper' (Gen. 2:18) towards procreation, since another man would have sufficed far more easily in physical labour and companionship.139 (Elizabeth A. Clark, ibid., p28) As far as this may sound crude to the unreligious ear it could only have been voiced from one truly waiting for the Parousia.

As I say, Augustine’s early life seems to reflect that of the same deeply ingrained view that the libertarian anarchist Leo Tolstoy had 1,400 years later, and from a position of privilege in which power is exercised from the hand that feeds. Tolstoy was of course a devout Christian heretic but very influential at it. In fact, it is very Tolstoyan to have wanted to bed his serfs and set them free. Where into his old age Tolstoy could only try to dampen the flames of passion, Augustine renounced sex altogether. In the manner by which Tolstoy educated his serfs and returned to a life of farm work he saw equality through education, in the process setting up a school for them. Tolstoy is in the religious minority when it comes to anarchist thinking, a product of the rise of individualism granted by his wealthy inheritance, and it is fair to say that most anarchists are atheists, many of whom derive the law from nature, as for instance with the scientific Michael Bakunin, who took Marx’s economic materialism and celebrated the wisdom of the instincts.140 And perhaps he resonates more to modern feminist notions that “the freedom of each is therefore realisable only in the equality of all.”141 This was his concept of justice, requiring the moral law. What could he mean by this? Essentially, a person can only realise his own freedom and individuality through the persons around him.142 For this reason he promulgated collective labour as an ant or bee would in their own environments. Yet we may understand from his writings that through the influence of economic materialism individuals were judged according to work done, and this, Peter Marshall affirms, can in itself also endorse economic inequality. Underlying much of the anarchist movement then is this charismatic nature of the individual which acts to patronize the under-privileged in spite of the ‘good intentions’ that morally may fly in the face of convention. Patronage exercised by the Church conferred this influence too even if the inherited Roman and Hellenistic climate inspired freemen to accept their lot and climb the social ladder to put behind them the serfdom and poverty of the past. In fact, the early Church had no real opinion on slavery.as it was an established way of life.

136 Matthew V. Brown, op. cit. 137 Liz Vestal, op. cit. 138 Mark V. Brown, op. cit. 139 Ibid. 140 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p263 141 Ibid., p49 142 Ibid., p291

To return to the real issue though, rational development was seen as the a priori standpoint of the Church and this would always be entrusted to men who made the decisions. That is not to completely deny the potential development of the animus of the woman but in order for feminism to progress, albeit in its closeted form, it required a denial of the woman's gender-identity and the upholding of a vision of a patristic Father figure as a means to achieve fulfilment and protection within early and medieval Christendom. This could have only helped the unconscious surfacing of the women’s movement that was to prevail over the centuries. To conclude on this note, it is no wonder that the devout Monica, Augustine’s very influential mother, was considered virile. She had all the potential qualities of a developed male animus exactly how Jung defines it as a projection upon the male consort who best can live up to this aspect of the unconscious personality, the imagination and desire to create, whilst Augustine had all the qualities of the will to power and ultimately the power of language and meaning to interpret the Old Testament in a new light. To her he would represent the council of the Church, to him she was the embodiment of womanhood. Ultimately his personal anima would have failed to deliver an appropriate physical consort after the immature years of soul-searching in his life delivered him a concubine whom he had fallen in love with and lost. It would have been hardly befitting for him to transfer that anima to a 12-year old girl in marriage now that he dwelled within the supra-personal divine image of Mother Nature.

Jung said that the apposite personal qualities that our unconscious exhibits are generally maladapted to the established ideal of oneself.143 In other words it alludes to the reality of living in a material world in which one is required to fulfil a stereotypical role. These psychic entities, she goes on, in reference to the animus and anima, can behave as if they are a law to themselves, being either helpful or destructive. In this she is referring to a disjunction in the individual’s personality. My own life has been littered with their uncontrollable appearances mainly during my earlier years living in dysfunctional societies. Being an enviromentalist and farmer though has helped me to personally relate to nature at first hand. I want to relate my own situation.

Just recently these appearances came with the wind, but not for the first time, and it seems to emphasize the elemental nature of the unconscious. Catalonia is well-known for its destructive winds. It causes huge damage on the landscape either through spreading fire or tearing structures apart. In reference to Odin and Grimm’s fairy tales, Emma Jung compares such an elemental with the woman’s animus in its superhuman divine aspect.144 By this she is indicating the animus not as an uncontrollable phenomenon, as is so often the problem with dysfunctional personalities, but as an overarching governing divine will in its impersonal and representative form of primitive womenhood. I relate to it in my ere references to the higher soul, and maybe for lack of a divine vision I have never fully appreciated my own greater role in society that the impersonal fates have for me. In the context of women though, the traditional myth and tale of Odin or Wotan had also been known as the lord of wind; this primitive deity is likewise the giver of all that is good and perfect, and the granter of wishes (Oski). Wishing, peculiar to feminine thinking as much as prayer is to religion, is the stage that pre-empts the will to power. For an analogy here I could say that it is the primer that starts up the engine. They are definite spiritual realities, whether in thought or image, that can find concrete expression in the development of the female logos. Jung lists these passive entities as namely imagining, thinking, wishing and creating, in their projection and outward search for a male consort.

Now, so that we maintain the thread of my essay, we should be aware of a duality here wanting to express unity. If this is done under conscously-controlled circumstances then it implicates rationality in the process, moreso transcendence. We should be aware that science prides itself on these attributes of imagination and an end-wish for a fixed set of results. This gives objective emphasis to humanity’s endeavours even as the Greek classicists put words to the metaphysical adventure. But this dialectical act of transcending duality in thought is not the apocalyptic vision that Jesus mysteriously and magically harboured. That is because the material universe ensures that knowledge always has another direction it can go, and that is downward into ever more detail and objectivity. This type of development, as one might imagine a passive thought finding concrete expression in the world, foregoes the bridge of spiritual evolution for, as I have previously said, evolution is a spiritually redemptive act for the will’s reconciliation with knowledge. For both men and women it necessitates developing the unconscious from its gender context. Hence duality must be transcended both through the feeling (feminine) and intellectual (masculine) aspects simultaneously. Without jumping too far ahead in this essay what I am stipulating is that no matter how well developed someone’s intellectual capabilities are it will always be gender- contextualized when its movement is downward i.e. consciously determined. But spiritual balance does not necessitate the absolute development of knowledge, one can still be primitive and balanced in their mind-set; knowledge should always be relative. And this act is predestined for the very reason that its movement is upward. I like to imagine it as a

143 Jung, Emma, op. cit., pp1-3 144 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p17 spiral, the understanding of which will make itself obvious later in this essay. Seen in this light unconscious development presupposes that humanity is in a fallen state from its once antediluvian androgynous unity, and that freedom anticipates knowledge. However, to choose a spiritual path is unconsciously determined and as such one is chosen, driven by the unfettered instinct towards growth and evolution. In clarifying Jung’s point earlier, the personal archetypes of the unconscious show us the way that we can redeem ourselves from this “inherited fallen state” in the spiralling cycles of the psyche. And not to mince my words on ths subject, the impersonal archetypes which are not integratable and which in themselves are pure concepts, ultimately leads us over the bridge to the other side into Never-Never Land where ‘children just don’t grow up’.

Unfortunately for the masses it proved to be a one-sided victory that in the end endorsed a patriarchal society at the biological expense of female intellectual development. As much as the male in the modern world cannot come to terms with his own feminine unconscious stirrings, to exploit those qualities in the female requires keeping her unconscious too. It is the duality of interests that are dysfunctional here, I believe so, anyway. And for the individual woman to develop her own unconscious masculinity she would need to drop the shackles of a patriarchal society toward the nurturing of her own rational objectivity. And this is individualism per se. Effectively, it is an act of evolution that requires women to transcend culture and its inherent inequalities much as say any repressed individual needs to. You can see here how the evolution of the individual equates to a sexless society - individualism per se gave rise to science, politics and technology which in themselves are default motives that, arguably, are not gender-contextualized. The conventions of patriarchy though left women out for much of the last 20,000 years. As such the fabric of society is continually threatened with scarcity when its vision fails to deliver an ethical code, and this has been the main concern of modern environmentalists who uphold the Nature principle, or Creation ex(de) nihilo. For without an ethical code a vision is merely passive, it remains undeveloped. In effect the overarching (supra-personal) divine will is subjugated and human culture is left directionless, without a bridge. There are genuine claims today that the erosion of an ethical code is leading humanity towards a tipping point. I have already alluded to this in my understanding of the Apocalypse that occurs through default material incentives when the individual need to transcend culture loses its divine aspect. So, as much as science, technology and politics are default motives in themselves that obviate the spiritual and the need to transcend individually, at the same time I see a kind of hope in which cultural revolutions may prove to be the defining consequence.

My above conclusions go some way to explain the effect of my mother’s frenetic energy to unhinder all that is logical and rational on our farm in which its thought-out technology and design seems to be continually sabotaged. The influence of her presence generates an air of uncontrollability and impulsion no doubt through her anxiety to rid herself of my hated ‘useless’ stepfather who doesn’t fit her shoes, but more importantly, to replace him. This inflated animus, rather than having its energy directed, has lost the vision to see the greater rational solution of a longer, easier life on the farm. And as time catches up with her she is effectively picking at straws hoping for a magic pil to cure all, including her disabilities. Where in the past the patristic male figure may have comforted her in old age with a vision of Heaven, if only for want of maintaining her religious upbringing, instead she continually and bitterly looks back through the withdrawal and internalisation of her psychic projections. In their predominance and desire to actualize themselves in the modern world she is always grasping at material ideals through her obsession with control and cleanliness; the TV is her only small comfort of State news coming from either the government or the monarchy, ideals she upholds and typical representations of superfluous order. Yes, it is in the State that she trusts. In such scenarios the issue is always black and white; when the the more natural principle of self-regulation is removed through the externalisation of control then ethics are eroded and subjected parties are more likely to be less responsible and more disputacious. In the mini world of our farm I see now how incapable my father is at even thinking of cooking a family meal or cleaninig up after himself. Bearing in mind that kicking him up the arse seems to be the only way to get him going, after 20 years there is still no external lighting to the house, likewise it took 16 years to install solar panels, and 18 years to eventually pay a couple of builders to fit windows into the main porch area where much of the socialising, dining and television is situated.

Leaving aside for now the issue of emotional abuse, misdirected psychic entity as such can manifest spontaneously as the desire to create something haphazardly, akin to wilderness per se, in its motive to be more conscious and thus objective. In my mother’s case this is a failure of her knowledge to find concrete form. Maybe her whimsical qualities are a form of primitive womanhood but in the autonomous milieu of a farmstead this is all the more exaggerated where once they were living relatively comfortably in the big city we are all now off the grid. Yet her needs are not unfounded as she had the vision to replace her social needs by enlarging the family with lots of cats and dogs. I am aware here that such an existence requires a functional relationship but the conscious passivity of my step-father and the unconscious activity of my mother is all the more exaggerated in an environment in which they lacked the sufficient knowledge to make it work. Conversely I seem to be in my paradise. We should note that in the not too distant past the transition from a Paeleolithic to a Neolithic culture genderised human culture further and freed up a lot more psychic energy through the introduction of technological measures. They were referred to as elementals and spirits and were very much a part of the superstitious and primitive mind-set that is still developing emotionally. To observe such primitivism in an aging woman indicates that her vision hadn’t matured in a modern world, giving energy to her tantrums as much as a child does. Her now-refusal to socialise with her own peer group out of fear and suspicion makes her a ‘martyr’ ready to blame everybody else, including myself. There is a lack of rationale here, a lack of transcendence on both sides. It’s sad really, but a perfect example of how the compulsive effect of a woman’s spirit will reinvent the logos and in some cases will try to enforce it in its masculine unconscious drive. She operates on her lower sensual soul because she fails as a logical individual, whilst the old man can be overly objective and lacking in feeling. And yet where she needs emotional contact in order to give practical expression towards her social salience, this is all but evaporating now as she barely listens to those around her, embittering her to further impulsive reactions. But that is not to say that she doesn’t have any masculine qualities whatsoever; an inflated animus is just that, out of balance and out of conscious control. You may recall St. Jerome, a fantasizer of virtuous women whose own inflated anima drew him like a magnet into female fraternities. There seems to be a very fine line here when one’s personal ideals are too often unmet. Individualism is just as much a religious cause as it is a secular one.

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I reiterate here, Jung says it is the man’s feminine and impersonal anima that is the archetype of womanhood.145 Contrary to what I believe it purportedly cannot be integrated; it is supra-personal. With all credit to Jung this is an objective viewpoint, expected of her professional position. Yet I believe that through ritual the impersonal is approachable, like 3 goats crossing the bridge into the providence of the Unknown. It cannot just be an intellectual affair; it is also an evolutionary approach to life in which one’s path is predestined. Hence, as much as the individual feels they are on a solo journey, on a much more unconscious level they are being carried by a social consciousness which appears to generate a higher intelligence. It is akin to a magnet’s (Creation) power to draw metal (saints) to it; the closer one is to Creation so the more irrestistle is that power. In other words, one’s path is chosen. But like many religious functions ritual has become tokenistic, where in fact true religious man is unconsciously motivated and governed by the environment. Maybe these lyrics I wrote in an Italian botanical garden can throw a more poetic light onto the matter. The Lord’s Prayer God, for me you represent the unknown You will never reveal yourself to me in any form Other than through the lens of my senses For you have raised me high amongst the people And made me a guest of honor amongst them What befalls me now is always in your hands I await my great fate For it seems you bring me to a grand finale I ask, Is this an end of earthly life? Or am I to expect this to be the beginning of eternal sustenance You bring me amongst every kind of flora My search for the origin shows you in a multitude of forms To see you in such opulence surely is the end of time When only the most revered amongst humanity are granted this path

145 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p86

It is a solo quest not lonely in the least Every walking day is a guiding hand into the deeper unknown Bringing me in closer union with the singularity of your being And each new rising sun brings with it greater freedom As your messenger the lower conscious masses see me as a guiding light They would touch me only to draw nearer the flame of life Burning as it does in the deepest recesses of every living being I am amongst your garden and consistently struck by one beauty after another Where does it end, where does it start? It seems nature is in the palms of my hands I am not alone

Earlier I articulated that Jung refers to a higher and lower animus of the woman, the power of the king (volition) over the magician (command). I reinterpreted the archetype of the king as more than Augustine’s higher will (mens) where the imago Dei is located, because it precludes the ability to have a free will; if anything it appears irrational. But then Augustine was referring to a conscious process and not an unconscious one. In other words, unconscious environmental determination represented by the impersonal is the Unknown by which the rational function (mens) can choose to freely navigate towards, ’For you have raised me high amongst the people, And made me a guest of honor amongst them. What befalls me now is always in your hands. I await my great fate.’ I expound further on Jung’s interpretation in which she represented the presence of the archetypal king as purely voluntary action by which she, at first, confusingly denotes it a personal aspect. Such archetypes come in many forms and can be attributed both impersonal and personal attributes rendered by their means to become conscious. As such I elaborate on the role of the Holy Spirit a little further along in the same vein that other symbols of royalty can transpose themselves from the impersonal to the personal, suffice to say that when considering the variety of interpretations concerning its divine functions different religions provide different contexts. Undoubtedly their was a paradigm of consciousness change during the advent of Christianity in which, according to theologian Rudolf Bultmann, the distinction coincides with the Holy Spirit as both a temporary or permanent gift.146 In Jewish writings it is portrayed primarily by a specific situation or task, in Christian it is an enduring feeling. (Bultmann, Rudolf (2007) [1951]. Theology of the New Testament. 1. Translated by Grobel, Kendrick. Waco: Baylor University Press. § 14. The Spirit: 1) It gives indication of the latter’s ancient Greek influences in the Stoic and Neoplatonic idea (Plato, Timaeus, 30b–c, 33b) of the spirit as anima mundi - or world soul (Greek: ψυχὴ κόσμου psuchè kósmou) as an intrinsic connection between all living things on the planet in much the same way the soul is considered bound to the human body.147 As a vital force we see related phenomena in Eastern systems of philosophy including the Brahman-Atman of Hinduism, the Buddha Nature, Taoism and Ying-Yang, and Qi in Neoconfucianism, and which later influenced the hermetic philosophers like Paracelsus, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Hegel amongst many others. There are also very strong parallels to the Dionysian Mysteries and the Bacchic Rites in which religious fervour, either through the use of intoxicants or techniques of dance and music, was used to remove inhibitions and social constraints in order to induce a natural state.148 In its transition from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one it reflected an early form of psychotherapy for those who felt marginalised including slaves, women, immigrants and outlaws.

It is this parallel in pagan and monotheistic thought that I want to highlight, that through volition one may choose their path to the Unknown but what carries us closer is bliss, not unlike the anima mundi in its holistic awareness of the complete being and which ultimately returns us the death of culture and transformation. There is a sense of being inside rather than outside oneself but is neither solely a sensual nor intellectual one; the self is passivated and sits as an observer and not a judge, instinct per se. It differs from the purely animalistic experience because the individuated development of the faculty to reason still remains, albeit passive. As the sixth sense it concords with Pelagianism in that the sensual body must likewise be treated as a result of grace instead of the sin incumbent in the Fall that Augustine espoused. It also throws greater clarity on Church doctrine that says one can have either free will or knowledge, but not both simultaneously – through volition we enter into the Unknown only because we are releasing ourselves from the shackles of culture (scientia); the knowledge of God (sapientia) is the meditative state of being but the enlightening process that

146 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit 147 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_mundi 148 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_Mysteries guides us along this path is becoming. I am sure Julian in his discourse with Augustine would have no problems with this word ‘becoming’, because it makes reference to the natural attraction between things and their harmony or beauty. If men, in particular, have then, this capacity to free themselves of earthly things through the cultivation of their higher anima and the realisation of their feminine intuitive faculties it would entail coming to terms with their own rational (mens). Women, on the other hand, whose voices are muted, remain created in the image of men but could easily see the attraction of sensual emancipation without the need to express it through word, on the basis of their biological nature. What would need to change is the milieu of belief, and this is how the early Church was perceived in juxtaposition to a patriarchal society in which women suddenly did find a voice for themselves; the knowledge of things only raises more questions, but the knowledge of God is unconscious and incontrovertible.

Jung goes on. Only the personal aspects of the unconscious are integratable, which find their way into dreams and myths as a consort of sorts as hitherto illustrated. Interestingly, I believe Emma Jung depicts a scientific viewpoint here reflective not of a truly experiential nature but solely an objective interpretative one, deduced from my own experiences in the magical realm of personal transformation. I have highlighted the example of the Valkyries under the auspices of Odin the wind god, an ancient primitive deity found in the Edda representative of the woman’s impersonal superhuman divine aspect, “a memorial of the time when the masculine mind was occupied with riddle-guessing as woman's mind is still today.”149 And hence Jung asserts that the woman’s suprapersonal animus is the archetype of manhood towards the development of a correlative logos. And this is very interesting for its parallels the story of the temptation of Adam by the snake (scientia) which leaves Eve following in his footprints. Later I will talk more on Jung’s interpretation of Odin’s myth. But it is important to note here, that as a personal entity Jung emphasizes the importance for woman to realise the animus into presence in order to prevent its dominance over one’s biological self.150 Of course, this is also applicable to the male anima whose unfamiliar feminine stirrings and feelings lead to an intuition that can inspire the man forward. And this enables the biological self, in both cases, to assume a balanced relationship with an actual living partner without the detriment of an inflated predominant unconscious will. But what is really interesting is that on a personal level, and I have already referenced the relationship between my own parents, both the anima and animus mutually constellate each other so that they call each other forward that Jung says provokes one of the most complicated relationships between humans.151

This latter, when moulded as such into one’s projection, is always on tender hooks. For a woman it leads to increased discrimination of the real person who stands in opposition to this ideal; the man is also plying his suggestions in order to keep his projected image fixed on the repressed woman. I feel as though I became the brunt of this masculine projection when Aura and I first met but which, as I say, did not play itself out on the farm whilst I was in my ‘perfect environment’ under the auspices of my impersonal Self. Such a supra-personal entity can be understood as the Great Mother in the man as I have always known it, or a kingly omniscient figure to a woman that Jung calls a distant, unknown father.152 It is a spirit common to all without subordinating it to the personal and which can be related as a soul guide and helpful genius.153 Emma Jung indicates such in the telling of the story of “The Stolen Veil” in which the enchanted princess, whose royalty represents her superhuman divine aspect, is set free by her hero’s mother.154 [“Dergeraubte Schleier” See J. K. A. Musäus, ‘Volksmarchen der Deutschen’, Vol.II in Marchen der Weltliterator, 1, c (58-59) The returning of her veil, stolen when she was bathing, (and the placing of a crown) allows her to turn back into the royal image of a swan and fly out of the window. The swan, on the other hand, is otherworldly and unconscious until, that is, it is set free. In this case Jung interprets it as either the Great Mother, represented by the impersonal and thus the unconscious, recalling those who belong to her, or maybe a hidden rivalry between the hero’s mother and the man’s higher feminine anima, which is a relationship that can play out in actuality. In another myth this royal figure may be likened to the the Egyptian god Osiris and again, a rivalry presents itself here but this time through his brother Set. What is interesting is that tales and myths can be defined from both a feminine or masculine psychology, such that in the above account the enchanted princess represents the woman’s, not the man’s, higher personality or Self. Bear in mind that the psychology will cross over into each other, by which I have already shown that a royal figure of the king can be just as much personal as impersonal to a woman aware of her power of volition. The intimation here through is that the bird form represents unawakened spiritual potentialities which the hero arrogates, and this is important since it reappears in the following myth under the guise of

149 Ibid., pp16-17 150 Ibid., p39 151 Ibid., pp11-12 152 Ibid., p37 153 Ibid., p39 154 Ibid., p58

Isis. The Egyptian legacy and the pharaonic descendency through Osiris and his son Horus, on a second reading, now begins to throw a lot more light on the subject. And for this I am in gratitude to Emma Jung for defining some of these elements. There are various versions of the story but here is the basic structure of the myth presented by Joshua J. Mark for the online Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Firstly, it should be stated that Osiris is a very ancient and popular God who has undergone various epithets and names, chiefly as Wennefer, “The Beautiful One”.155 As Lord of the Underworld and Judge of the Dead, Khentiamenti, “The Foremost of the Westerners”, he was also the brother-husband to Isis, the relevance of which I will make apparent further along. Like Odin he also had his ‘demon-messengers’ who would drag the living into this gloomy realm of the dead.”(Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the God, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt, Oxford Universit Press, 2004, 178) But the Afterworld here should be perceived as a magical place of death and transformation not unlike Valhalla and its hand-maidens. His association with the mythical Bennu bird, which is the inspiration behind the Greek Phoenix who rises to life from the ashes, is indicative of this. His role as Judge of the Dead was embodied in pharaonic rituals that measured the course of the sun in its setting, only to be magically reborn again through Horus, their son. The ambivalent qualities of this god are apparent in his other worshipped attributes, chiefly the Lord of Love, King of the Living, and Eternal Lord, and this can be understood in his associations with fertility. So old is his presence that the etymology of his name is clouded in fog. For this reason some claims have attributed to him a primitive vegetation spirit, even a mother goddess predating the predynastic period (c. 6000-3150 BCE).

The fertility in antiquity around the Nile region that brought prosperity to the Ancient Egyptians is well known. As such Osiris’ black or green skin symbolized the fertile mud of the Nile and its regenerative attributes after the seasonal flooding. Hence he is usually seen as a just, generous, and giving god of life and abundance, absorbing the function of earlier gods such as Andjeti and Khentiamenti, two gods of fertility and agriculture worshipped at Abydos. Embodying these feminine aspects he is recorded as the first-born of the gods Geb (earth) and Nut (sky) shortly after the creation of the world. I note here that Creation takes precedence over what may be referred to as the first gods of civilization, and this is an important issue because it vindicates my point that, as much as Osiris may have originally been a deified predynastic ruler who gave culture to the people, as such he is still personified in human terms.

From here I would like to quote the story of Osiris and why he came to be worshipped.

The Osiris Myth

“After the creation of the world, the first five gods were born of the union of Geb (earth) and Nut (sky) and these were Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus. Osiris, as the first born, as- sumed rule as Lord of the Earth, with Isis as his queen and consort. He found the people of Egypt uncivilized and lawless and so gave them laws, culture, religious instruction, and agri- culture. Egypt became a paradise under Osiris' rule where everyone was equal and there was abundant food as the crops were always plentiful. Set was jealous of his brother's success and grew resentful. Their relationship deteriorated further after Nephthys, Set's wife, disguised her- self as Isis and seduced Osiris, becoming pregnant with the god Anubis. Set had a beautiful coffin made to Osiris' exact height and then threw a grand party where he presented this box and told the guests that whichever of them fit in it most perfectly could have it as a gift. When Osiris lay down in the coffin, Set slammed the lid on, fastened it shut, and threw it into the Nile, where it was carried away down river.

Osiris' body traveled out to sea and eventually his coffin became lodged in a great tamarisk tree growing near Byblos in Phoenicia. The tree grew quickly around the coffin until it completely contained it. The king of Byblos, Malcander, came to the shore with his wife Astarte and ad- mired the tree and the sweet scent which seemed to emanate from it. He ordered the tree cut down and brought to his palace as an ornamental pillar for the court, and there Osiris remained, trapped inside the coffin within the pillar, until he died.

155 Joshua J. Mark, ‘Osiris: Definition’, published 6th March, 2016 found at https://www.ancient.eu/osiris

Isis had meanwhile left Egypt in search of her husband and eventually came to Byblos, dis- guised as an older woman, where she sat down by the shore and cried for her missing husband. She was invited to the palace by the royal handmaidens who had come to the shore to bathe and there ingratiated herself to the king and queen so she was asked to be nursemaid for their young sons. Isis tried to make the younger boy immortal by bathing him in fire and, when Queen Astarte discovered this, she was horrified. Isis then revealed herself as the goddess and the king and queen promised her anything she wanted if she would only spare them. She re- quested only the pillar - which they swiftly granted to her.

After leaving the court, Isis cut Osiris from the tree and carried his body back to Egypt where she hid him from Set in the swampy region of the Nile Delta. She left him to go gather herbs to make a potion to return him to life, leaving her sister Nephthys to guard the body. While she was gone, Set learned of his brother's return and went out to find his body. He managed to get Nephthys to tell him where it was, and when he found it, he hacked it into pieces and scattered it across the land and into the Nile. When Isis returned, she was horrified but quickly composed herself and went to work finding the pieces of her murdered husband. With Nephthys' help, she recovered all of the body parts except the penis, which had been thrown into the Nile and eaten by the oxyrhyncus fish, which is why this fish was forbidden food in ancient Egypt.

Isis was able to revive Osiris and, once he was alive, she assumed the form of a kite and flew around him, drew the seed from his body into her own, and became pregnant with a son, Ho- rus. Even though Osiris now lived, he was incomplete and could no longer rule the land of the living. He withdrew into the afterlife where he became Lord and Judge of the Dead. Isis, fear- ing what Set might do to her son, hid Horus among the swamps of Egypt until he was grown. At that point, Horus emerged as a mighty warrior and battled Set for control of the world. In some versions of the story, Set is killed but, in most, he is defeated and driven from the land. The chaos Set had unleashed on the world was conquered by Horus, who restored order, and then ruled with his mother.”

There are some elements to this story which are quite striking if I want to show a Jungian analysis to it. The most obvious is the death/transformation of Osiris in the Afterworld that brings forth a living son, Horus. This could only have been achieved after Isis, in the form of a kite, draws the seed from her dead husband/brother. Like the swan in the story of “The Stolen Veil” above, the appearance of the kite indicates the royal signature and the super-divine impersonal form which is feminine. At the same time it previses and authenticates the coming of the true king as the story unfolds. The first correlation seems to indicate a common origin to the Valhalla myth and possibly many others, the power of the wind/air to resurrect the body and return it to the Afterworld/Valhalla as a hero. Likewise, Isis is here representing the Virgin (Mary as her higher self) in its later Christianized version, especially through her wild form as nature. As such, the kite seems to represent a version of the Angel Gabriel visiting Mary, both in form and symbol, by drawing the seed of the heir into her through the beating of her wings. And this is also an Islamic perception on the basis of narrations in cer- Ruh al-Qudus, "the holy spirit") with the سدقلا حور :tain Hadith in which some Muslims identify the Holy Spirit (Arabic Angel Gabriel (Arabic Jibrāʾīl) ("What Is Meant by the Holy Spirit in the Qur'an?". Islam Awareness. Sheikh Ahmad Kutty. Retrieved November 14, 2018.) as an agent of divine action or communication.156 As an act or Word of God or logos it is thus accorded an androgynous spirit for its power to make the unconscious conscious.

Matthew 1:20 King James Version (KJV) 20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. In the material world the severance of Osiris’ penis is also symbolic of this androgynous quality, but who can now only rule from the Afterworld from where he is reborn in the fleshly form of his son, Horus. The parallels here with the Annu- ciation story of the Virgin Mary is unambiguous; a ruler is born from the impersonal realm through the ‘breath’ of the Holy Spirit or the Word of God symbolized by the kite and the elemental wind. Drawing the seed from the magically re-

156 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit formed body of Osiris is a reference to the unconscious which, as I say, alludes to the immortalisation of the spirit and its androgynous representation through both male and female aspects. As a manifestation of the logos, power is granted di- rectly from Creation and the spiritual influence is conveyed in the worship of the Son as a pharaonic legacy and the bring- ing together of the kingdom of Egypt through the collation of its once dismembered parts. Horus goes on to rule with his mother Isis, who subsequently became even more popular than Osiris during the Roman period, but as such the both man- ifestly Christianized through Jesus and Mary, Mother of Christ. The interesting rivalry is here again represented between the mother figure and the son, who both claim spiritual ascendancy and thus a royal inheritance. Isis, as the queen of Heaven, the natural personal consort of Osiris but whose incomplete form recalls him to the unconscious, also returns her to the impersonal form of a kite. Whilst Osiris maintains the Afterworld she is restored to actual royalty through his heir and son, Horus, who now rules alongside his biological mother. On a concluding note here, it undoubtedly bares the trademark relationship in Christianity that Augustine played upon. Not the lover figure that the Magdalene image ful- filled, but the sense that, as much as the royal image of the swan in the story of “The Stolen Veil” is set free, so the moth- er usurps this position as the higher self that Jung accredits to the man’s anima.

I have already looked at something of the Jewish connections with androgyny in the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The al-Ruh, without the adjective "holy" or "exalted") as the creative spirit from God by حورلا) Hadith likewise defines spirit which God enlivened Adam and all his messengers and prophets, including Jesus and Abraham. (Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, ibid.)157 And it cannot be doubted that the stories of these principal characters are always shrouded in androgynous ele- ments. As such the seed, representative of an heir, is drawn like a wind only through God’s command. This ‘breath’ of God or logos is the word that carries God’s anointed into a foreign land (Genesis 15), as Osiris is carried in a coffin along the fertile river of the Nile delta and out to sea to the land of Byblos.

Isaiah 44:3 King James Version (KJV) 3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: This figurative expression of life and civilization as one might imagine it to look like a vagina and womb, is itself sym- bolic of the rebirth that is about to happen through the journey back through the salty waters of Creation. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit, again is represented by the change of environment in which the water as an elemental is replaced by wind, depicted by a coffin propped up in a tamarisk tree. The attractive scent of this tree is a perfume that figuratively accompanies the ‘seed’s’ liquid journey up to the top of the tree waiting for rebirth. I am personally familiar with, what I believe it to be referring to, this sweet scent which is unlike anything else I have smelt, and it always occurs during natu- ral emissions. Again, the correlation with the Hebrew story of David (1 Samuel 26) mentioned earlier as the true heir to the throne is indicated by a great sleep of transformation which is cognate with death and rebirth; whilst the warring Saul is sleeping he is overcome in his royal assumptions and is superceded albeit in a peaceful way. Horus, on the other hand, will receive his inheritance unconsciously for he is yet to be born. Here we see the parallels of the shepherd David taking the spear and cruse of water that lay at the side of Saul (Set) as a symbolic gesture of the fertility granted by God (Crea- tion de nihilo) and passing onto the rightful heir. As a baptism symbolized by the cruse of water Saul (Set) was also marked as one of God’s anointed but who now doesn’t extensively figure much more in history afterward. On further investigation of the Jewish stories it appears the correlations are even stronger in Christianity; baptism is immersion - i.e. a complete immersion in the Spirit. This is synonymous with Jesus’s baptism in the River Jordan when the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon him and John conceded his heirship. Need I say that it was a dove that brought mes- sage to Noah of the presence of land (fertility)? Here the water, like in Osiris’ journey, is symbolic of a great sleep of transformation. And this, I would argue, is the impersonal form that Jung relates concerning the super-divine aspect of this higher masculine principle of the animus that she calls “a supra-personal power of light.”158 But I would forward also

its androgynous representation as part of the male psyche too as I would the Isis-kite towards the female.

John 1:33 King James Version (KJV) 33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Ho- ly Ghost.

157 Ibid. 158 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p37

In Hebrew, the word ‘Ruach’ can be translated as an invisible force, the ‘breath’ of God which disperses His life-force.159 Yahweh’s spirit is here all-permeating, omnipotent. In the Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament ‘Ruach’ signifies both the power of ‘wind’ and ‘breath’ that puts all things into motion. In Aramaic and Hebrew it is feminine whereas in Greek (pneuma) it is neuter in gender. As much as the Israelites made him a personal god too, I like to think he is also a representation of the impersonal form of Creation in which he embodies both male and female qualities. It was not unu- sual for both the Aramaic and Greek texts to use either masculine or feminine grammatical forms to indicate this. As such Yahweh’s ‘breath’ is neuter in gender. The theologian Rudolf Bultmann, previously mentioned, talks about there being a definite case for a paradigm shift in consciousness. Whilst the more personal attribution of the Holy Spirit is “animistic”, the later development in Christianity of “dynamistic” thinking (Bultmann 2007, pp. 156-7) “appears as an impersonal force which fills a man like a fluid.”160 (Bultmann 2007, p. 155) Towards the end of the Old Testament we begin to see more of the latter as the guiding reason behind Christianity, no doubt influenced by the Greek philosophers as ere men- tioned. And this is subsequently developed in the New Testament under the auspices of a moral code over a judgmental one found in Judaism by the use of the epithet ‘holy’. (Dunn, James D. G. (2006). "Towards the Spirit of Christ: The Emergence of the Distinctive Features of Christian Pneumatology". In Welker, Michael (ed.). The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 3)

John 14:26 King James Version (KJV) 26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. And if I am allowed to squeeze the concept a little further I can’t help feel that in the Indian tale of the dancer we have their psychic representations here already expressed by the magician and the king. The magician is the unconscious pos- sessive commanding force of a personal god working upon the individual in almost demonic fashion - the jealous troll guarding the bridge to the unconscious, whilst the king’s presence, on the other hand, can only be felt as a lifting of one’s senses into an real inner of transformation occurring in unison with a change of environment which, as I say, is imperson- al. This is the act of transcendence whose relationship can be adduced to as depicted by Set and Osiris in their aforemen- tioned right to heirship. I wrote in a previous essay the following:161

This theme is carried into the New Testament. The apocalyptic milieu of Jesus cultivates an arena of 'waiting in confidence for the gift', as juxtaposed with 'seizing or grasping in military assertion'. Thus Jesus represents the meekness of character requisite for the fulfilment of God's promise. The enduring icons of Jewish suffering are embodied in such megalithic structures as the Wailing Wall and Masada. The message of Jesus is clearly that [it is] the haves who must lose, and the the Have-nots who gain the 'Kingdom of Heaven'. This rightful possession is gained through the enjoining of Jesus' suffering depicted through Johannine and Pauline usage of land imagery.

As such then, its ambiguity of meaning in Christianity in which the Holy Spirit is referred to in personal terms seems to contradict the assertons of Bultmann as an impersonal force. It is not for want of the fact that the Holy Spirit is often ad- dressed as “it” and “the” and describes a specific manifestation of the Father’s Spirit Being,162 but for the reason that without a personal name many sources attribute the Holy Spirit as a Person of the Trinity even when it is significant that the Holy Spirit is neither worshipped nor communicates with either the Father or the Son of the Trinity anywhere in the scriptures. For instance in Acts 8:29 the Holy Spirit spoke to Philip and in 15:28 gave witness to the church at Jerusalem. I think this ambiguity is a factor of Bultmann’s observation that the New Testament emphasizes the moral qualities of what it means to be a Christian moreso for the religion it wanted to differentiate itself from.

159 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hebrew_Roots/Trinity/Holy_Spirit 160 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit 161 Merlyn Peter, ‘If land economics are the ecological imperative of the rise of the modern environmental movement may one find an historical precedent in the origins of Christianity?’, found at https://www.southlondonpermaculture.com/marketpage.html 162https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hebrew_Roots/Trinity/Holy_Spirit

John 12:40-46 King James Version (KJV)

40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

41 These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:

43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

44 Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.

45 And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.

46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. Yet Paul never addressed the Holy Spirit in his letters as a personal relationship, rather his relationship appears more im- personal.163 It denotes an invisible force, hidden, by which its design for life is unknown and yet is always present through the mighty acts of miracles and other epiphanies. It is a power that proceeds from the Father so that He might achieve His unknown will. It is the realm beyond the bridge, impersonal and unconscious, “a supra-personal power of light” and “heavenly place”.

The similarities then with Odin the wind god would suggest a cultural and psychic inheritance that is prehistoric. I have also stated that Odin is a granter of wishes and this in itself can simply mean a ‘giver of life’, a blessing and a transform- er. So with Odin and his wish-maidens, and as much as Yahweh encompassed these apposite qualities of male and female embodied in a single entitiy, so the magical union of Osiris and Isis all conduce to the giving of civilization through one means or another; at once destructive, chaotic, deathly, as well as constructive, orderly, and fertile. “As the Eternal Son, before the foundation of the world, He was brought forth from the Father. As the Son of Man, he was conceived by the holy Spirit which emanated from the Father into this physical realm to impregnate Mirium with His seed.”164 Through such the spiritual finds its host in which the material world is rewoven into culture as a legacy of Creation via the bridge between the unconscious and the conscious on which a personal God stands.

Revelation 5:13 King James Version (KJV) 13 And I heard every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth and such are in the sea, and all that are in them, saying, “Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto Him that sitteths upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!” It isn’t supposed to be easy surviving, but as I say, it is the reason why the duality of unconscious gender relations formed the basis of the sexual adventure towards the mitigation of the threat of extinction in the very distant past. The dating of this stage would have proceeded from an androgynous origin in the development of the mind, which Odin’s myth is veri- ly representative of. Aside from the speculation of an alien ancestry, androgyny, among other important early myths like Creation and Civilization stories, all conduce to the origin of, not necessarily a super-race, but certainly a higher intelli- gence. This needn’t entail it looking like anything we can imagine today, but rather a higher intelligence is one that would be more conducive to environmental awareness, the very lack of today that over the holocenic period has accelerated the repression of the human race. And a higher intelligence is a more spiritual one mainly for its capacity to anticipate chang- es in the environment. In spite of the animistic inventions of some religions, the general belief in the Holy Spirit in Juda- ism refers to the divine aspect of prophecy and wisdom, and this was also indicated in the giving of ‘tongues’ at Pente- cost. And with this comes an environmental determination that is a dynamic given for most life-forms to abide by. Spir- itual development in humanity is an unconscious response towards the impending threat of extinction, which I believe is a natural phenomenon that occurs cyclically. The technological race is the drawing down of this spiritual power that wants

163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. to mitigate this threat, but it is prevision and prophecy granted by the holy Spirit that allows us to prepare for it with hind- sight. As such we should be aware of those individuals who have this ‘voice’. Every prophet is a product of their age.

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Some important things should be noted here. Suspended in that unconscious world are these personal archetypes that make up the shadow self. The manner in which they autonomously project themselves upon another individual is an unconscious drive that is the result of the inherited human culture of the individual. These are psychic entities developed over time through gender relations and which show themselves when the instinctive energy of the biological individual is freed up for other tasks that are normally reserved for inherited acts. Hence they define an unmet development the individual needs to make when confronted with culture, and this is a factor of the gender relations which are always in tension with each other. If you could imagine behaving simply like an animal, this would be represented in the above diagram as a single bubble contained with another; there would be no ego, no shadow self. The very fact that humanity has fallen from this holistic state gives origin to something else in the Beyond – a rational outlook (mens) to the imago Dei but which is now personified in human terms. In its super-divine impersonal form it is Creation ex nihilo,”a point of light beyond the darkness”, and the way to draw towards it is through passivating the ego so that the shadow self is likewise made redundant. This brings us back to our real self in a spiritual quest that engages the environment (de nihilo) around us as an interface to Creation. You may believe that God from nothing made Creation et al, but as soon as you define this consciously you see it in human personal terms. And these are, in effect, representations manifesting in the immediate environment that give concrete form to our inner psychic world. We have talked about elementals and the like extensively. The reality shows that all lifeforms on this planet have an unconscious awareness of Creation on the basis of its interconnectedness and thus read the environmental signs through their biological and sensual natures; it is pure instinct yet unconsciously driven.165 Humans likewise, but in creating a personal conscious outlook naturally lends itself to the creation of an impersonal form. It is the androgynous spirit that bypasses our cultural inheritance and thus its gendered frame of reference by mitigating the effects of our personal archetypes through the passivation of the ego. When one is thus environmentally determined as are all other life-forms, so then we dream of the royal archetypes of the higher anima/animus which indicate the dispelling of culture and the transcendent acknowledgement of the impersonal that Jung confirms is non-integratable. And this is the unconscious recalling back her archetypes as the swan in the Indian tale of “The Stolen Veil” recovers her royal dress and flies out of the window. For men this super-divine aspect of the unconscious is the archetype of a primal mother, and for women, a father the both of whom reside in a celestial place. It

165 “A disease organism might not be able to exist in other parts of the world due to its [global] climatic conditions. But this does not mean that a species has not been forewarned of its possibility of dying because of it. If a plant dies on one side of the world the chemical flux will alter the environment. The environment, although altered minisculy, has affected the conditions for all other species to live in, even the disease organism. The subsequent death or thriving of other organisms will suggest then that the earth always finds global equilibrium. When that disease organism finally reaches other parts of the world where the climatic conditions are suitable it will infect any suited species. (A point here, it is common for disease organisms to be totally independent of climatic factors if its direct environment can be maintained in the internals of a living species.) Thus the accumulated experience or evolution of an infected species will have already taken it into account. Its prophetic nature then allows it to deal with it [global change] and accept it as integral to its further progress, i.e., to have changed before it dies of the same condition or to die for purposes of evolving life-forms globally. In the case of human beings, those most sensitive to the chemical flux become ‘prophetic’ types, superhuman in their ability to withstand the oncoming chemical flux that will be affecting human society.” Merlyn Peter, Book 1 Being - The Evolution of Consciousness, ‘26 November '98 On the Theory that Death and Suffering Evolves all Life’ found at http://www.southlondonpermaculture.com/soteriologicgarden.html What isn’t so striking is the fact that at this time of writing we are on the verge of a major pandemic from a new virus called Covid-19 spreading at an alarming rate across the globe and without any developed vaccine. As of this day 15/02/2020 total infections exceed 66,000 globally and deaths 1,500. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe- 51514837?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cyz0z8w0ydwt/coronavirus- outbreak&link_location=live-reporting-story should be noted here that I bracket Jung’s terminology of the supra-divine non-integrateble form under the collective heading of the ‘impersonal’.

There was undoubtedly a clash of motives regarding the aforementioned women of my sexual life, if you will forgive my persistence on the subject. The higher self is want to reading and interpreting signs in the environment which must be part of the rational mind referred to by Augustine. But the process of getting there is the individualist quest in acknowledging and addressing unconscious behaviour, which in the above diagram is a product of our inner world, without which the development of the ego ere referred to as the inflated unconscious will draw man back down to materialist inventions. As such the spiritual quest leads one to the supra-personal (impersonal) via its tendency towards androgyny in which the environment acts as the interface to the personal. In effect it is our biology which is being usurped by unconscious psychic behaviour, and so the means to mitigate it is different for both men and women according to the culture we have inherited. Hence we must understand the degree of emotional development that we can ascend towards, which must be different for everybody or, more accurately, is continually being prompted by the amount of contact the individual has with society. In historical and metaphysical terms humanity has “fallen” from its kingly state in which, I believe, it develops the emotional baggage that signals the magician’s repression inherited in his or her unconscious. But although one is want to attribute irrational behaviour as a trait of women, and logical as that of men, this view is already antiquated even in patriarchal societies still extant across the world. Ultimately global communication has exacerbated the phenomenon; men can be just as much repressed unconsciously within their own sex as a factor of hierarchical structures. As such the both genders project their idealic partners on the inherited basis of how their relationships have developed historically. Such a time span would indicate a genetic basis to emotional repression which can only be broken out of through the act of transcendence and its correlative spiritual awareness. To reiterate on this point, it is individualism per se that allows one to redefine culture through the personal transformation of its unconscious development. I can make the analogy here with those Benedictine monks who were frontier overlords. The marrying of spiritual and material incentives through default patterns seems to be a given; the innovative conscious-raising individual breaks the boundaries of culture. But the repressed individual, on the other hand, does little more than follow social cues. This is the nature of hierarchical structures, they are egotistically driven; it conduces to the creation of a shadow culture carried in the masses. But this inheritance does not have to span the complete gamut of interpersonal relationships, and losses made at work or in the competitive world of say, sport or entertainment, can be allayed and a different relationship can ensue at home. We must remember though, things have changed a lot in a few hundred years with a whole array of relationships developing in the wake of individualism. The post-repression era of women is an example of this and is almost a bygone age in itself. It has led to the stark rise of psychiatry and medical psychology on the basis that individualism is a self-perpetuating phenomenon driven by intercultural and global relations that are always testing for new boundaries.

When I consider the sexual bath I had at Glastonbury with the American woman called Spiral I know I had released her from an overpowering and crestfallen condition due to her previous relationship. I mentioned this earlier when I attributed this effect to the act of ritual. I saw her for what she was, a royal figure of a swan, and a realisation through the reading of signs in the environment since the White Springs of Glastonbury are entrenched in swan mythology. And I found the queen in her now obviously exalted state. May I lament her departure as a swan that flies into the beyond and never to see her again, but maybe I only have myself to blame. For the actual sequence of events show that in meeting another woman the following day in the same place of whom I admired for her sexual beauty I was suddenly stricken with a crippling back condition that incapacitated me further albeit these things never last. Literally I was on my hands and knees crawling back to my bed. I had lost my royal marriage and condition of higher love for a purely sexual archetype instead, the latter going the same way as most other potential sexual adventures, fleetingly. And in retrospect, as maybe the forthcoming transcript of our brief conversations will hail, once I lost my “perfect environment” we could never return to that state again without it. Maybe this is how it goes with everybody, the oscillations of the super-divine Self and the psyche, the personal and the impersonal, the conscious and the unconscious, the individual and the social.

Hence I do portray myself with this divine aspect, years in the making. And this is a result of the testing and experimental “childlike” qualities I exude for which I have been able to embody in my immediate environments. I recall the funky permaculture allotment and the house and garden I used to live in in South London. On top of all of these are the frequent travel experiences to unknown places. And now I work the farm in Catalonia. What has been essential in all of these experiences is the necessary proximity to nature and a sense of entering the unknown. The potential is always to expand my psychic reach into these environments. The reality of experiencing a mythopoetic lifestyle vindicates this and has provided the inspiration for many songs and poems. This has been coupled with a material scarcity in which anything that does come by my way always feels like a gift. It was natural for me to expand onto the railway line at the back of my garden, to work the woods on the allotment, to find an unused building, tree or cave during my travels, to be able to walk into wilderness without a logical clue as to where it might lead me. Had I been a little braver I would have had a lot more success with women also, mainly in their biological form. Even now I recall cycling up the mountain ranges of Montsant with darkness impending and suddenly finding myself in a rainstorm. I knocked on the nearest door and the woman who answered quickly let me in to dry my clothes. She was in her mid-20s and spoke English. She kept on reinforcing the point that her husband was somewhere that she didn’t care where, and that I would always be welcome to come back here when I wanted. I read the language then but refused to accede to her inner motives. More recently I was on the beach in my hometown in Ametlla de Mar espying the rubbish that had been left on it. It was out of season time so there were only a couple of other persons around. I quickly espied these concrete building blocks which were used during a fireworks display and started moving them two at a time from one end of the beach to the other locating them next to the steps. I would collect them that night when I next passed in my van. As I walked in one direction so I collected the litter of plastics in the other, and cleaned up the whole beach at the same time. I was praised by a tutor from the local marine college who had obviously lectured on the subject. You can imagine what I looked like though after 20 blocks, muscles bristling. Soon afterward I was approached by a South African girl who just ‘turned up from nowhere’. We got on quite well, went for a coffee and I listened to her desires. She mentioned a few times that she was just staying at an apartment overlooking the beach; it wasn’t long before she invited me up. It belonged to a friend of hers who was away for the weekend. An unmade bed, dope and rolling paper in front of a television, and a very unhomely look as if the place was a den of sorts. She was quite hot too and I considered the prospect, but otherwise looking very “second-hand”. The body language said it all really; she only had sex on her mind. But that never came to pass because all of a sudden she was receiving these texts saying that her friends were about to turn up. I promised to come by later with the guitar when I would pick up the blocks also, but she never opened the door or replied to the texts. She was categorically a puta, who travelled between towns and hung around areas where there were building works going on.

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So to extract some of the more relevant points I talk about a spiritual sacrifice, and Kirsty was that sexual anecdote that would delay my destiny. I guess I saw Spiral as the woman who would lead me into my final act, the higher love that would make up for everything I had been denied in my life. And this is interesting because religiously this projection has been portrayed as the ‘mother’ archetype that usurps the throne of the ‘lover’. Without doing an in-depth study of other religions I have already mentioned the examples of Augustine and Jesus in Christianity. Her role here must be to preserve the lineage, the evolution of ‘the anointed’. And she does this through the heir. When ultimately the ‘lover’ archetype has run its appeal then what we see is the internalisation of that spirit that seeks the ‘mother’ in the greater world. And this naturally inclines the individual to celibacy and androgyny.

The way I love women is always different for each case. I believe this is a factor of allowing them to impress their feelings all over me. As a mirror to the world it really does tear at me from one side to another. And I guess this is my last lesson in love before I finally internalise the woman whom I appreciate for her own impersonal destiny. This statement seems to make sense. It explains why women are increasingly more difficult to hold or desire. Every encounter is a pre-destined moment now. She may never arrive in the flesh, neither the biological heir that humanity so craves after.

‘You will know me when a wind will unexpectedly open your door or take your curtain. And then I will have you naked before me like a house waiting to be filled. And with all the protection and warmth that a house could bring and soft carpets in which I have lain. You will insulate me with the scent of fresh sawn wood so that I can be born again as your only child.’

10/06/2018, 03:39 - Merlyn Peter: <> Playing in Fenelon Falls art fair 11/06/2018, 03:08 - Yogini Eugenie: Great picture, nice to see you smile � I was asked to play at a wool and weaving fayre in Fenelon Falls. Here for another 8 days. Here's another pic or 2. 11/06/2018, 10:57 - Merlyn Peter: <> Wool and weaving fair 11/06/2018, 13:12 - Yogini Eugenie: Wow how fun and colorful  11/06/2018, 14:24 - Merlyn Peter: <> Back of my Brother’s lake I imagine this place like Lake Orion.

15/06/2018, 18:34 - Yogini Eugenie: Too bad you didn’t get your visa for here 15/06/2018, 18:35 - Yogini Eugenie: I am Staying at a natural building place 15/06/2018, 18:35 - Yogini Eugenie: You would love It  15/06/2018, 18:35 - Yogini Eugenie: Hope you are enjoying and maybe the next time around  15/06/2018, 19:28 - Merlyn Peter: Looks nice. There are many in the world. At least I came halfway. I need to finish seeing the rest of the world. I am not so fully rooted. By the time I reach 50 years old my only children possible will be genetic reproductions. Women don't offer me an alternative. Can you see where humanity is heading? 18/06/2018, 12:07 - Merlyn Peter: Hi Yogi, I wanted to send you a book on Permaculture which I brought along. I still have it here before I leave tomorrow. 20/06/2018, 17:08 - Merlyn Peter: We haven't received any seeds in Spain. The post can be slow at times. 20/06/2018, 13:50 - Yogini Eugenie: Hello 20/06/2018, 13:50 - Yogini Eugenie: I thought you were staying for the solstice 20/06/2018, 19:31 - Merlyn Peter: Not in Canada. Arrived back to the UK today. Come over. Permaculture festival this Saturday.

20/06/2018, 19:32 - Merlyn Peter: Had a great time there. FACEBOOK 06/08/2018, 00:13 - San Merlyn: Hey princess, you still like me! 08/08/2018, 20:46 - Yogini: Of course I will always love you 08/08/2018, 22:38 - San Merlyn: Haven't been back to Glastonbury since....yet 25/08/2018, 09:18 - San Merlyn: Searching for the Lady of the Lake 08/09/2018, 00:45 - San Merlyn: How are you Yogi? 09/09/2018, 02:24 - Yogini: I am many shades of the rainbow, water me and watch me grow. How about you which way do you do San Merlyn: Mama bean is raring to green. She's such a swell girl, all rounded like a pearl. A collector's item for the gardeners glean, where she'll grow at the edges less seen Yogini: Beautiful. Thank you San Merlyn: I'm in a hammock with a full and empty stomach. On the Camino in time for a mandarino Yogini: Sounds like a great place to be, chillaxed and free. Haha wild mountain man San Merlyn: Like you know. Though not as cold. A story retold. If only to be bold. ElCaminoDeSantiago. Yogini: Bold is your path it seems to me, you find gold in the cold and transmute it to a story told San Merlyn: Sometimes the words run like rivers. Other times they give me the shivers Yogini: Yes it’s true as the cycles of the moon reveal what can it be concealed. Cannot be concealed San Merlyn: If only you could be here goddess of the dark mire, to raise me up with a sword and a cup

09/09/2018, 23:00 - San Merlyn: My slumber gets deeper as I wonder of my keeper. Is it my higher self that.... I didn't quite finish it last night! 11/09/2018, 15:54 - San Merlyn: You missed me last night 12/09/2018, 23:14 - San Merlyn: Now's your chance, let's have a dance 02/10/2018, 18:44 - San Merlyn: I'm back in Barcelona. I am not sure how the olives are this year but I will be returning in a week to the farm. Then to the UK at the end of the month. You are welcome during this period. 22 JAN 2019, 22:42 - San Merlyn: How goes with the genie?

31 JAN 2019, 13:51 - San Merlyn: Cold?

A whole year has passed in conversation.

‘Unconsummated’ may be a good word to explain what occurs during all my relationships. But I guess it indicates the right time for any relationship to falter. It seems that every time I play my wild card I get it blown back in my face. There have only been a few girls who are able to sustain this type of energy. Spiral and I needed that extra day and I don’t doubt we would have been booking our `flights for the next visit. ‘What if?’ is always the question, but it is a question that dissolves away with time. Those that can’t accept the fates are too masculine and objective in their rationale. The Green Man who spent a night on a bed of composting leaves at the back of Chalice Well Gardens in moderate comfort and warmth needn’t had spent another night in Glastonbury. I met my Green Queen and, as I say, all she needed to do was take up my offer to go to Avebury, the largest ring-stone town in the world and the only one with a village in it. The relationship ended in the middle of January even if we continued to converse for another year, one week after Kirsty had also broke it off finally (so so), but then I must wonder why this coincided.

If you remember in the film Inception, the projection of the dead wife always comes back to haunt the man in his dreams, and starts turning his reality against him. Likewise recall earlier in which I mentioned Morgan “le Fay” depicted both as a beautiful healer and an evil licentious temptress. These extremes illustrate both her unconscious and conscious presence that will ultimately influence the magician Merlin, and King Arthur’s court. It had occurred to me that their representations as unconscious archetypes in stories or dreams play themselves out in everybody’s life only that in some they are more pronounced than others. This is vindicated by their presence throughout human culture in the world in spite of its European Christianisation here. We have already seen in one Indian example the relationship of the king and magician provided by Emma Jung. In this she referred to the higher and lower animus which contextualises, in my view, the sexual parameters of human nature and the individual spiritual quest. Morgan “le Fay” provides another distinct archetype that many individuals have had to deal with, not least for both her diverse abilities to heal and seduce. How often we see men susceptible to a woman’s touch as indeed many fables illustrate in the tending of a hero’s wounds. Indeed, Arthur himself succumbs to Morgana’s power too when he is fatally wounded, akin to the Valkyries of Odin. But this best explains the higher anima where, in fact, my own personal case shows the sexuality of women to divest my powers into the concrete world as a projection of my lower personal anima, which alludes to something of the nature of materialism to draw down the spirit and this grasping after human culture. Like I say, her redemption would be my fall and I have expounded on plenty of examples clarifying this attraction. I have already recounted this act through the death and resurrection story of Osiris and Isis. To take this lead a little further, I also mentioned earlier this idea of a woman consciously projecting her unconscious upon me, in this case the animus of a mother who was a client, as a kind of spiritual alchemy so that, instead of rebuffing this advance, her child is born into the concrete world with, or that her child can inherit, my musical abilities. This would surely be an exceptionally powerful effect of my spiritual attributes which can be construed as a form of magic. As such then, other versions of the legend of Morgan “Le Fay” illustrate this in her quest for power and the throne through an heir. What is important though is that a good reading of the story should illustrate the relationshps between these archetypes. For all intents and purpose, Arthur was Merlin’s apprentice who would rule and bring the courts of Britain together; this is the conscious thread. On the other hand Morgan was his prodigy. As a feminine projection of Merlin she embodied all his power and magic so that it attracted the attention of the Round Table to its reaction; this is the unconscious thread.166 Thus she sought to divest his powers by sleeping with him, and in some traditions giving birth to his magical son. In modern tellings her identity has been conflated with that of her half-sister Morgause who has an incestuous relationship with Arthur giving birth to his illegitimate child Mordred who is fated to be his downfall.167 As an act of evolved power herself she consciously materialises her masculine side in order to rival Arthur’s kingship. And in this her plan to steal the sword Excalibur and give it to her lover Accolon is thwarted. However, Arthur’s death (great sleep) is characterised by the theft of its magic sheath which has healing powers. Again we have the representation of fertility here both in humanity and the fruitful granting of land, as with King Saul losing the spear and cruse of water in having to cede his power to King David. Ultimately the lost sword represents the passing of the kingdom to an heir as did Saul’s spear. What is even more Jungian in its analysis is that if we take the earlier traditions in Vita Merlini we see the healing theme expressed through Morgan who can shape-shift and fly and who receives the wounded Arthur after the battle of Camlan. Thus Morgan appears as the legitimate carrier of the heir expressed in later versions through the allegorical representation of the sword (healed) in its sheath. The understanding that she can change shape and fly would suggest her otherworldliness and a part of Arthur’s unconsciousness that must be “consummated” or developed, as through the procreative act of ceding a child. And very interestingly we see her role here as a form of a

swan maidens of Odin, the warring Valkyries who bring back the heroic dead to Valhalla.

166 Geoffrey of Monmouth is the earliest account in Vita Merlini in which she is referred to the Isle of Apple (Avalon) where Arthur is carried after his fatal wound in the Battle of Camlann. Here she is depicted as a great healer, including the romances by Chretien de Troyes. In the English traditions of the 14th and 15th centuries which include the unknown author of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur depict them both with the same mother, Igraine. Here, Morgan’s sister is the Queen of Orkney and the mother of Mordred. As Merlin’s apprentice she is also sexual and predatory in this tradition, taking numerous lovers that may include Merlin and Accolon, and is an adversary to the Round Table. Scheming against Arthur she regains her original role in taking him to Avalon; https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay 167 https://theconversation.com/morgan-le-fay-how-arthurian-legend-turned-a powerful-woman-from-healer- to-villain-109928

Thus, if I may, I correlate this rivalry, this jealousy of power, with a multitude of traditions that reflect the psychological inclination of their authors. These themes continue to occur indefinitely in all storytelling and so give basis to other versions of the same legends. The projection of one’s unconscious usually takes its apposite form in the material world, Morgan to Merlin/Arthur, Isis/Nephthys to Osiris, etc. but when taken for their deeper profundity the stories mainly represent the unconscious powers hidden in the psyche; whilst retaining the temptation to procreate this gives the individual a persona that, under controlled circumstances, draws towards omniscience/potence and androgyny, but in its uncontrolled nature that of a monster. This refers back to the film Inception in which the representation of the man’s wife during his dream state was this uncontrollable antagonist thwarting all his plans but in reality she was a loving supporting

woman when she was alive. These are the psychological perils of sexually-repressed human beings.

I remember a time during the stay at the house of one of my gardens where I am so lucky to have a guest room. When I first met Kirsty she wanted to come over and stay a night but my wonderful aged host Karen was adamant and said ‘no’ even if some of the younger students who live there occasionally do have sexual company. And then there was that telephone conversation with Kirsty in which Karen interjected with such vigour that I could only put it down to some unconscious force controlling my fates. Again this relationship appears like the ‘mother’ usurping the throne of the ‘lover’. Jung clarifies this further when she says that the animus figure of the man appears to woman more for their mastery in particular fields of study,

“Corresponding to the factual orientation of man and characteristic of the logos principle, this Figure 6 figure can come on the scene in a purely objective, unrelated way, as sage, judge, artist, aviator, mechanic, and so on.”168

That is what I am to Karen, a master in the garden growing every food to her needs. But in the manner that a man’s anima sees women through relationships, in this case my unconscious played on the fact that I probably reminded Karen of her own son, so then does my shadow self claim the more long-term option towards its security and continued existence. To note, I express myself in personal terms here, and not impersonally by which I arrogate my “perfect environment”. Jung goes on to say that neither does the woman’s animus figure necessarily have to express a relationship so that how men appear to a woman’s feminine mind is at times portrayed by a ‘stranger’ figure representative of the logos of which she is unfamiliar with. All the time I was that lover to Kirsty so I fulfilled her inner fantasies to have sex with a relatively unknown person whom she ‘bewitches’ by fitting into the shoes of one of my personal unconscious projections. In fact, it is a common fantasy of women to have sex with a stranger as an unconscious way of fulfilling their logos. How often I have come close to this type of sexual encounter is a testament to it. You may recall the naked Julie who pretended sleep whilst she fully exposed her vagina and wore lipstick. For the modern woman it may even be preferred to over filial relationships; sexually it is more stimulating. But I quote, her logos may not extend much beyond this point and anything originating from the personal unconscious usually has a life of its own. Karen though, is wonderfully developed in her logos and shows these masculine qualities in her knowledge of the body, the mind and culture, even if she is an atheist. And so I could only be useful to her in a purely objective and non-relational way; and this is the case, for as soon as she saw the possibility of replacing me that became an integral part to our future-shared plans. It is no coincidence that her son was due for an overseas visit so that I needn’t remind her of him anymore. And this should tell you something of the impersonal, how it is developed in Karen’s case by the moulding of the environment around her in which she creates her perfect space for others to move in and out of; she demands only those who can take the logos onto ever higher levels, and this has been my situation, not so much as a musician (there are plenty of those around her), not so much as a teacher of sorts (for she is an educator of teachers of the Alexander Technique), but the one thing that will take her into a healthy old age, a gardener. Regarding my own development of the impersonal I may be witnessing here a wonderful collaboration of the anima and animus constellating each other at intermittent times during the year when we both need each other, and at no other time. Kirsty’s introduction, for her lack of the impersonal, can only be a threat to Karen as now my anima will “fall” into its lower form and surrender me to its bewitching influence; I would begin to cease to be useful to her anymore. Interestingly though, Karen has developed this environment around her of brilliant individuals moving in and out of her life, and so sets a very high bar. And the last thing she would want is her residents going on sexual adventures. So in this respect she controls the house in which she lives, albeit carefully selecting those individuals who will maintain a high bar. It is true though, that all the time I ‘mix it up’ I flittingly remain a stranger to women and could probably never maintain a longer-term relationship with them if I were in constant touch.

This raises the issue of sex and its effect to dull the senses. The poetic abilities of Spiral indicate her temporary chaste

168 Ibid., p28 lifestyle (not necessarily out of choice) in which she sought the higher logos in her animus. The transcript above vindicates this. But for Kirsty, like Samara the sex freak, the pure carnal pleasure excited her for one’s lack of a developed unconsciousness, a lack of the impersonal, and this allows for the unconscious reach of a partner to ‘smother’ them into submission. It is no coincidence that Samara was simply lodging in a house of an old flame with very little authority. The impersonal is a definite “created space” that one’s psychic reach navigates through, and it starts with one’s own body. In effect, it is the most powerful form of individualism in which others vie within to gain any benefits, mainly through the integrity of its reach to connect with other people. Seen in this light it shoulders the responsibility to reform humanity through its institutions and indicates something of the social hierarchy in culture. At the bottom are the masses in their sensual drive to biologically unite under one race, propping up the structures that bind them into submission to the elite, almost like marionettes whose separate moving parts are unaware of the hand that feeds. This powerful echelon of society unconsciously influences the masses in their psychic reach through the natural development of “created space” defined by the impersonal. It can only be, and privilege is granted through social influence. It must be a great sacrifice of will to see those who have privilege become sex objects themselves, and so make one wonder how many of these ‘leaders’ are actually in control of their own status and intentions. Seen on the metaphysical level it is complete delusion to believe you can control people all the time one is an example of being controlled themself. In other words, without pretending to be an example one cannot lead; sexual gratification is the loss of free will.

During sex I always abstained, or tried to, from ejaculation so as to prevent the loss of my higher anima. Pregnancy would undoubtedly have changed my whole life to one of submission even if I now believe this is a mistake of attitude. Like everything I do, I accept my fates. I am certain now that, all the time Kirsty lived in her mother’s shadow, she unconsciously projected the archetypal image upon me of the lover-father figure who would remove her from her mother’s hold upon her in the absence of her own real father. This played out in her attraction to older men in which she saw herself as a toygirl. She knew my age yet at the same time she sought the maturity of a man who would lift her off her feet and carry her into comfort. She was a materialist in the making even if I thought I could hinder that and uphold her wilder qualities. It should not be an uncommon feature to want to be able to combine these archetypes of ‘lover’ and ‘father’, in fact it would be a mistake not to; the complexities of human relationships open up with the rise of individualism and mythologically there are examples of such. Broken families are a case in point, even if Kirsty was not from one. The failure of mixed gender influence whilst growing up can result in the opposite predominance of one or another so that boys take on feminine characteristics and girls masculine ones. I wonder at tomboys whom I often find attracted towards me. I have come close to a few relationships with them in the past, it being more than having a bonce of lovely hair. Children need their role models, not least in adolescence. This is a biological fact. And biologically, or sexually this influence is mainly imparted via your peer group whether it is same sex or not. And so for young girls to act like boys in their company and vice-versa is quite natural. I myself prefer the company of women but I have long outgrown that adolescent stage in which they can impress their feminity upon me and so I internalise the influence through identification with the impersonal. This has allowed my psyche an androgynous and spiritual state of being.

Homosexuals are also a case in point, preferring outward conscious and materialistic relations that are ‘biologically’ opposite their own sex. By this I mean they like to be socially dominated by this gender rather than to dominate it themselves, so that when a homosexual encounters another person of the same sex who elicits these opposite sexual qualities as part of their inflated animus then they see a natural attraction there. You may think this is draconian in my assertion but I am making a generalisation here; it is true that I have known spiritual gay couples who can fulfil their higher logos. But my experience tells me that if a man or woman wants to be dominated by the opposite sex they will look for it consciously first even if they won’t admit to it; having failed that they will then seek it unconsciously through same-sex relations and this can be facilitated by the society they live in, but not always. As such they would need to step out from their cultural norms which in itself can be quite liberating. Hence there is a fine line between homosexuality and spirituality on the basis of whether one can control their unconscious surfacings. I am proud of never having a homosexual relationship; I have always nurtured the unconscious in my creative zeal. In all cases here I am talking about the developmental stages of a person’s life that allow them to fit in society and be accepted, but how that life pans out afterward is a matter of time. Likewise it does not preclude the individual desire to break from the pack and be your own person. All in all then, socialising in opposite sex groups can be perceived as curative as well predatory, no matter what inclination you may be, in the sense that it balances out your gender relations established in an earlier period of your life. Bear in mind that a social intelligence, however biological is its mode of transport, raises the individual to a developmental level and impresses upon the person this higher rationale that an undeveloped consciousness or logos is attracted to. It has always been the human instinct to gather in times of oppression and loss of identity.

When a social group is absent a child can also result and react from strong individualism. Thus a boy may take on the characteristics of a dominant mother relationship as a form of sexual repression, and a girl that of a father type. Single parents, as in the case of Kirsty, are subject to the dominance of one sex or another unless the child can find a correlative peer group that balances out the effect of the parent. And that was Kirsty’s final line of approach, a 22-year old adoloscent looking for release from her dominant mother by wanting to replace her missing father with a lover. So often a mother in this situation, having lost a partner, will try to impose upon the child a conduct that she feels will help the child not make the same mistakes. This is a mistake in itself; it would be far better for the child to leave home, and that is what Kirsty sought. Rather than seek this elder man in the company of her college peers who were too young to drive her ambitions she instead used the arena of half-naked men in the Serpentine Swimming Club who might fantasise over her. As a psychic process the failure to control this image reduced her to sexual gratification to the first lover-prince who would come along and sweep her off her feet. I was that person. It was only a matter of time before she realised that I wasn’t as rich as many of the other members, an impressive array of barristers, musicians, athletes, politicians, writers, photographers et al. In this case then, what we see is the ‘lover-father’ archetype being unconsciously projected onto a group of highly sought-after professionals and experts who could fulfil this older role. Throwing your lot into one basket, so to speak, replaces the individual with a social consciousness and gave Kirsty a rational basis to her ambitions. This so- called extended family is a direct relation to what Sigmund Freud describes as the Oedipus Complex,

“The Oedipal complex, also known as the Oedipus complex, is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his theory of psychosexual stages of development to describe a child's feelings of desire for his or her opposite-sex parent and jealousy and anger toward his or her same-sex parent.”169

Appropriately termed as such in 1910 Freud uses Greek myth and the story of Oedipus who, not knowing his true parents at birth eventually kills his father and marries his mother. The term is equally applicable to girls vying after their fathers. Even though Freud attributed it to the phallic stage between 3 and 5 years old in actuality it continues to influence the relationship between their opposite-sex parents. From Kirsty’s point of view I lacked in my need to nurture her femininity as maybe Freud would have better termed it, because instead of assuming the man sacrificing his station from his cloud and redeeming her with conscious development I allowed her to think that she could create me in the form of one of her unconscious personal archetypes. When she tried to control this process she messed up the relationship; I didn’t like her anymore even when she thought to get back with me having left it too long. I don’t need to repeat myself too often here, but she wanted me as a sex slave towards her own self-image as a sex goddess. So even though it was all passion and wildness a baby child born of such a relationship would have been torn between us because as Jung points out, “such a completely successful projection is usually not of long duration.”170 Neither of us appeared ready for parenthood, albeit I was in the better position to adapt and could easily have made it work. She would have fulfilled that personal lover archetype to me also all the time I would have considered her as a procreative partner. And in fact I was falling in love with her. But it is not what her peers wanted and she continued to visit the psychologist and progress the relationship onto a rational level with the overhanging thought that she couldn’t handle another pregnancy. But at this stage I was already losing her whilst she was torn between taking too much advice or just going with her biology. When I should have been objective and fulfilled a higher role to her undeveloped logos, instead I allowed her to manipulate a relationship in which she had no control over her own self. As I say, I didn’t find this a problem as I have mastered the act of passivity to know how to self-destruct any projections that emotionally bind me to someone at the moment in which I am threatened. In terms of the Oedipal complex this desire for love can thus take on the monstruous form of an uncontrolled personal unconscious, just as if a child would empathise with its own parents and arrogate towards itself a biological need; you wouldn’t imagine a child wanting to control this relationship and so neither would you an adolescent. The parents, on the other hand, would need to take their love for each other and express it on a higher level of social consciousness. This will entail the child breaks free of this sexuality and evolves socially in the home as a balance towards its individual development.

And maybe this is the reality of life in which flying too close to the sun as Icarus did is like the heat of passion that eventually returns the individual to genetic/biological culmination – the “fall” from grace (Logos) is psychological whilst the sexual urges remain. And to take a page from Bakunin, we are all moulded by our society.171 How I understand this is that the more we engage in sexual conduct the more we are subsumed into the collective consciousness - the soul of the repressed, the weak and the ill to band together in the name of survival against domination by the few. This may sound

169 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-an-oedipal-complex-2795403. Carry forward Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams for his theories on psychosexual development. 170 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p11 171 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p290-1 like a contradiction in terms but effectively we are living unconscious lives by allowing the projections of our partners to mould us. It depreciates our supra-personalities onto a personal unconscious level and inhibits the super-divine aspect in its spiritual evolution. It is the individual moulded by societal norms and not by the creative urge to develop one’s unconsciousness sanctioned by our environment, the impersonal. But let me make clear here the point that Jung talks about in developing the logos as part of this spiritual quest. I differ in that the manner of this evolution depends very much on the aspirations of one’s culture too, so that every culture is different and motivates the individual to different levels of achievements and visions beyond it, especially traditional or indigenous ones. Self-actualisation is thus intrinsically linked to how one can reach the limits of one’s own culture before pushing its boundaries. As an historical aside then, for much of a thousand years one of its main Western protaganists was Augustine and the Church, a point that many knowledged persons wouldn’t argue with. It was Augustine who forwarded the idea of the complete society. Its effect would teeter the Church against the royal courts of Europe and its ruling houses through war and peace, assinations, compromise and reform.

As a divine institution the idea of the logos served a greater purpose in the Church, as a conduit for God’s sanctions. Yet the individuality it implicates came up against the body of established law in which, towards the end of the first millennium vied against the secular canons. How the Church changed in appearance is directly related to the maintenance of power over an expanding empire, one in which Augustine’s complete society was worthy of both praise and ignobility. The protagonists that followed, coming out of the gloom of the Dark Ages, wore with a sense of divine heroism the imperial shoes of the Western Empire in the persons of Charlemagne and Alfred. Their mission was to create a fully integrated mankind with its institutions.172 Flawed, in the sense that it was commited to a perfectionist program of conduct, the idea faltered on the concept that man can collectively align his intentions with that of a divine source. Of course, this was the individual quest that many have claimed to draw towards, but for society to be able to replicate this as a whole would eventually lead to a series of wars. These foundations of a total Christianity were indomitably laid down during the Carolingian Age that later European institutions were premised upon, Johnson citing it as one of the greatest formative periods in human history. Aside from the Islamic conquests in the East and South, the universalist urge was maintained in both the Latin and Greek push north in their search for converts.173 The schism though, would ensure a bloody war of words between Rome and Constantinople, the Franks from the outset laying down in law Roman-style baptisms, prayers and mass. The Council of Nicea in 787 convened to heal the iconoclastic doctrinal split which centred upon the Augustinian formulation filoque. In this the full godhead of Christ in which the Holy Spirit issues from both the Son and the Father was an unacceptable insertion denounced by the popes and its general Greek rationale. There was, undoubtedly, a difference in the make-up of the the Eastern and Western empires pronounced in the manner that language has always been a footstall in the acceptance of creeds. This has already been noted in the conversions of the Western tribes to Christianity through the institutions of law but more importantly, its translation through indigenous popular culture. But Paul Johnson makes some very enlightening observations. These namely entail that firstly, the initial Frankish converts had been guided by military zeal and the likelihood of success not unlike the Roman legions in their time, and secondly for the lack of espousing any eschatology regarding life after death which Christianity provided. Along with these German pagan societies it was also the basis of Gregory the Great’s instruction to the bishops of Canterbury at the end of the 6th century, that the teachings should be married to local customs. Wind forward 6 centuries and its inherited cynicism, a hallmark of Augustine’s complete society, only gave fuel to the fire of damnation. The house of Staufen which provided the empirical line, confided in the idea of the reinvigoration of the Germanic empire towards their independence from papal support through political and economic power.174 The papal administration stooped to even lower depths in their assasination attempts and extinction of the Staufen clan. It was Innocent III who would be the most formidable of lawyer-popes following Gelasius I, and others. In quoting Nicolas I, ‘The world is an ecclesia’, he centred the papacy in the world’s economy so much so that all subsequent kings and emperors would be subordinate to the societas Christiana. Hereafter began the trademark death-struggles of the Roman kings whose secular laws were now subservient to the spiritual. Frederick Barbarossa and his son, Henry VI, died the same year; his son Frederick II withstood a plot by Innocent IV, Gregory IX’s successor. But it was Gregory IX, pope in 1227, who ferociously persecuted heretics and who claimed he was acting on St. Peter’s instruction. The propaganda train of the papacy ensured that its terrorising of the royal courts would subjugate any future attempts of political and economic autonomy, puppeting future litigants with superstitious fear-mongering as now the wretched and renegade Emperor Otto IV, Frederick Barbarossa’s uncle and a papal puppet, is perceived dying of dysentery in his horror of hell, his body scourged in flames. Let us note here though, that as the Bishop of Freising, he also wrote a huge chronicle of world history, The Two Cities,

172 Paul, Johnson, op. cit., pp177-178 173 Ibid., pp179-181 174 Ibid., p197-199 inspired by Augustine, which is a series of phases in human history that reflect man’s destiny, culminating in the apocalypse and final judgment. He was not so much a pessimist as he recognized periods of peace that the Staufen house could grandiose itself within. However this threat of secular power, vanquished by the hands of the papacy, was the legal revolution that defined the development of the Church to dispense of justice effectively, smashing successive emperors through its claims of total sovereignty.175 As Paul Johnson states, it became a legal society whose verbal integuments were no longer scripture but canon law. The last great canon to be published, the Concordia Discordantium Canonomum by Gratians in 1140, was so thorough in its codification of the past that it was never revised or repeated, and it distinguished between necessary law, immutable and laid down by scripture, and convenient law, formulated and arrogated by the Church in the interest of discipline and the soul’s salvation. In an expanding empire it was this latter that exonerated many clergy, the majority posted for their education and compliance with little divine investiture, of their unpunished and sometimes flagrant abuse of power. The idea of a harmonious society was thus central to the logical persuit of rights, and here we see the real schism opening up between divine justification and the secularisation of society.176 Anyone who had authority upheld some sort of law; it was desirable. This is important to grasp as the loss of power reduced one to subservience such are the imperial hierarchical structures of a materialist society. As such, those susceptible to corruption were, in the main, the most powerful. The clerical professions had expanded enormously. Johnson, to quote, says that one in fifty could claim to be considered in orders, one in six might expect to get in trouble with the law. Many entered the institution of the Church service as lay masters, living like peasants whose squawking babies, bossy mistresses and creaking cradles wafted through their parish affairs. Secularism had crept into Augustine’s total Christian society on the basis that its imperial qualities to administer its politics and economies were in lieu of the lack of spiritual discipline.

The collective consciousness then, should be seen thus as a development of human culture, glorifying women and all other objects of material beauty in man’s image and not God’s. Where as God would define the individual quest to be free from the shackles of culture and its inherent desire to sexual development, instead we see the unconcscious collective repression of humanity as a direct result to arrest the environmental stipulations of Mother Nature. This is not a contradiction in terms. Like I have said throughout, human culture is based on the rational development of a technological consciousness that has its prehistoric origin in the defiance of extinction. We only see its accelerated effect in modern technological cultures now that it glaringly continues to distance itself from being environmentally determined. I vindicate this elsewhere in which I assert that the sexual revolution is itself a technological invention towards the mitigation of extinction. As such the defining years of post-Nicene Christianity is a testament to this paradigm change of consciousness and the controlling public image that men must portray if it wants to regain its spirituality. Undoubtedly the message was apocalyptic. And this was done at the collective expense of the sexuality of women who became the object of blame for their lack of rational development. Protagonists like Augustine would later have a profound effect on the ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) on the inferiority of women. As ‘imperfect’ men they were naturally subordinate. We must remember that Aristotle was a student of Plato’s academy and that Augustine, a neo-Platonist, inherited Aristotle’s ideas. If women were incapable of controlling their own sexual desires then they could not be trusted, and those who were exceptions of the rule rarely were.177 (Cf. Maria Luisa Femenias. ‘Women and Natural Hierarchy in Aristotle’, Hypatia, Vol. 9, No. (Winter, 1994)) As such medieval clergy continued to foster the teachings of Aristotle, Plato, and Tertullian who all asserted that sin lies in increased sexuality, such were women, without which social order would be lost.178 (Cf. Translated excerpt from Augustine’s The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount in No Women in Holy Orders?) Kubow points out that this was no more obvious than the medieval interpretations of Mary Magdalene who, “revered as the symbol of a faithful penitent in the fifth and sixth century juxtaposed with a sinful whore turned righteous (only) by the mercy of God in the later medieval period.” (Cf. Ingrid Maisch. Between Contempt and Veneration. . .Mary Magdalene: The Image of a Woman through the Centuries, translated by Linda M. Maloney. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1998). Also see Bertrand Buby. Mary, the Faithful Disciple, (New York: Paulist Press, 1985) There is a strong argument here of Proudhon who states that women are less evolved and inferior.179 (Quoted from George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: A Biographical Study, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956) In this he could only have assumed the religious intuition that the objective nature of man is what Emma Jung says is the struggle of the woman’s unconscious animus to come to terms with; her hidden masculine attributes defy her the objective world. Having complete sexual abstinence from birth, free from temptation, was thus considered by the Church as the perfect life from sin. It protected the spiritual authority of the Church and allowed its founders and forefathers to project a supra-personal entity. It may be

175 Ibid., p206 176 Ibid., p208 177 Kubow, op., cit., p11 178 Kubow, op., cit., p13 179 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p49 fair to say though, that individuals within the Church come to loggerheads all the time it is born from a patriarchal tradition. Hence the need for the all-knowing, wisdom-image of a Virgin Mother to provide the key to maintaining spiritual authority through the spiritual amelioration of the inflated anima

So then, to return to my personal circumstances with an insistence that vindicates my knowledge of worldly matters, when I look at my relationships with other women I have to understand the patriarchal context of their backgrounds, whether such a thing is still relevant, whether we live in an age where women feel abused if not loved? No matter how developed you may think the democratic world is it will shock you to discover that, even in places like the USA there are many states where, up until now, don’t have the legal structures in place to permit the teaching of ‘evolution’. In fact, I may have a better chance of presenting my own interpretations moreso than Charles Darwin could have even if he was a theist and considered God as the ultimate lawgiver. Religion, he said, was a tribal survival strategy which means that, if I were to view it globally, the idea of a complete societas Christiana seems like a far-fetched idea. As Paul Johnson says, it was a heroic attempt to unify the tribes of Europe into a collective whole. The problem, I believe, will always lie in the misrepresentation of the context of understanding. If women were a technological tool for the expansion of mankind against the odds of nature, maybe too hard for some of you to grasp, then only an evolving democratic society will give them a voice, and that is what is happening in the modern age. ‘Democracy’ is up for grabs, so that only through the extreme pushing of cultural boundaries do a lot of women exaggerate their claims of psychological damage. This extremism of reaction is a lynchpin of what a developing democratic society will tolerate. It enforces the age-old traditions of laws that ever become the central crux of justice; its grasping on a secular level the result of tribal societies expanding into nations and empires. The Church was a testament to this phenomenon; religions have discovered their cultural limitations as the world’s political and economic fields joggle with the individual desire of a “created space”. As Gandhi noted, the change is within. But this is a two-edged sword because when that psychic reach is identified with the environment, in an age of individualism more and more persons will vie for its personal power. As I say, they will create God in their own image. Religious institutions understand this and so serve to buffer this individualism beyond its own tribal limitations. It thus quickly grews out of its revolutionary and metaphysical appeal to its adherents, towards a conformism of the environment’s impersonal appeal. This is affirmed by Marx in hs profound insights of historical materialism who noted that religion is the opium of the masses, the sigh of the oppressed creature.180 In fact elsewhere I propound his metaphysical inquiry into the basis of the origin of socialism. And in this he vindicates the material circumstances towards its personal appeal.

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To be, or to lend oneself to, androgyny I needs follow the psychological patterns under a passive environmental stimulation in which my biological cycles are naturally reset. This permits me to quickly regain my logos of a highest spirituality. The logos here is drawing towards Creation, fixing in its mind the imago Dei which is our interface to it. It is where the personal comes to terms with the impersonal so that we see God in everything around us. As this space is naturally asexual I am referring to an androgynous state that transcends biology. It involves sexual abstinence of all kinds including masturbation so that one allows themselves to reach natural genetic culmination through nocturnal emissions. Genetically I am referring to our natural disposition to reproduce like animals, as Augustine was prone to say, but I have discovered something enormous in my make-up, in that I can suspend this moment of ejaculation indefinitely by conscious control (mens). In other words, I wake up at the moment of a wet dream and prevent its occurrence. It would suggest that the sexual drive is really a kind of social conditioning of which humans have the capacity to escape from.181 Like I say, it is not so much the cultivation of the individual but rather that of one’s psychic reach into the environment to

180 Marx, ‘Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right’, pp.41cf. (1844) found in Marx & Engels, On Religion 181 I remember the first time I masturbated, maybe as a 10-year boy, of being introduced to it when a friend talked about it in school and told me it felt good. That was the only stimulation I needed to try it out for myself. When you consider how personal the action is the ego develops not so much from its conscious application but rather as a reflex in the unconscious accorded to a patriarchal society and the sexual roles is denotes, i.e through repression of the instinct. produce a “created space” in which the spirit is individuated through its adherents. The difference in understanding is subtle; every spiritual leader requires the impersonal conditions that prompt him or her to operate within it, as the Church, the wilderness or places like Glastonbury are too many of us. It lights up our unconscious selves so that we are revealed for what we truly are. Were not the palm leaves laid for the arrival of Jesus, or that every teaching was preceded by his apostles’ pronouncements? This is the role of gurus and prophets who can draw towards them devotion as much as the planet Earth does and used to in primitive times, and is the evolution of a super-divine aspect granting natural power and influence in society. It is only attainable as a “passive” will and it is this individuality that defines each person in society and their natural status and salience. It is the anarchist quest albeit spiritual, and the libertarian spirit that recreates culture per se.

In my psychoanalysis though, what Bakunin makes clear, and that Emma Jung’s noted opposition to the personal archetype doesn’t, is that true individuality is a part of our society which juxtaposes our social cohesion. And hence many have argued for the naturalness of human society regardless of what methods its individuals influence the masses. But this is not to detract derogatorily Jung’s implications on the matter. I believe Bakunin had a natural understanding of the need to rear the unconscious forces into consciousness and bring them into alignment with the level and aspiration of the democratic development of human culture if and when the masses act as a whole, and this can be very sensual and emotive. Hence libertarianism can be a sexual revolution for its power to release psychic energy, which from the point of view of Pelagianism, is a modern take on the subject – it is the 6th sense that graces humanity when it socially acts with a herd instinct which Kropotkin would espouse as a higher rationale. Darwin may even have considered it a survival mechanism too. It is in this arguable vein then that Jung says of individuality as really being the opposite of the archetype, one that remains hidden if repressed in consciousness, and denotes the biological/sexual woman in a patriarchal society. But if I were to follow her line of thinking I would have to argue for the repression of man also as a biological and sexual being, which I partly do in indicating that hierarchical structures in society are likewise repressive in their methods. I reiterate, Pelagianism states that man is capable to choose not to sin as much as to sin in will, and so brings us back to this idea of the intention of will and the need to understand what is sin. Quite plainly, our sensual bodies will act with instinct but which contrarily, will produce a reciprocal effect in developing a sense of guilt if it is denied freedom. As such the comprehenson of sin is relative when we understand that human culture is the means of creating individuals whose rationale exceeds that of the masses because as individuals we feel and understand that culture is inherent with problems, crime, sin, failure, however you want to term it, and that we have the solutions for a better life. Frankly then, sin is the result of the act of repression on the free will which sets up in the unconscious the personal archtypes through which the experience of culture (collective consciousness) prompts when it wants to indicate a higher way forward, i.e. rationale development. And this applies both to men and women. Put this way Jung is correct in positioning the personal archetype against individuality but at the same time it does not take away the potential to exceed the individual’s rationale when the masses band together towards (r)evolution. And this would be Bakunin’s implicit understanding, that the nurturing of an unconscious self through its personal archetypes can also be an indication for showing a higher way forward during social revolutions as a form of psychical release. And this for me is the origin of religion. Needless to repeat, repression starts here in which the individual’s instinct arrogates liberation. And this is only achieved by breaking down cultural walls as a social revolution that will draw one higher towards the impersonal. For want of a better definition in these circumstances we may be no better than a stampeding herd. But this herd isn’t totally blind because amongst them are the leaders that nature has described to steer them towards the right direction. It was the justification for why Bakunin espoused violence in the short-term. Yet without its leaders social consciousness would be directionless.

As a “passive” will then, you may argue that social revolutions are not passive, that every individual involved is actively stirred into incitement. But you may recollect that in the hitherto story of “The Stolen Veil” Jung is describing the royal archetype of the swan being recalled back into the Great Mother, the impersonal unconsciousness. And this is a passive will, one that shows how we are all environmentally determined from a faraway celestial plane. It is important to distinguish here then her reference to the higher anima which should be equally applicable to the animus of a woman. In terms of the lower anima the reference is with the personal and the cultural baggage it implicates. It will come as no surprise then that a true leader cultivates or nurtures the impersonal whose “created space” may in fact be his or her retinue of followers. Seen in this light it is important to identify the inherent natural ability to stimulate a social revolution by being the example others look up to. And this is facilitated if one is able to create a space that others can share within and feel instinctively “active” towards as conscientious beings. Gurus, for example, set up ashrams.182 So even if in my

182 As part of one’s disciplined approach through life an ashram “… would traditionally, but not necessarily in contemporary times, be located far from human habitation, in forests or mountainous regions, amidst refreshing natural surroundings conducive to spiritual instruction and meditation. The residents of an ashram own personal case the women I have known on the farm, indeed anywhere such is the strength of my own psychic reach, allude to a rivalry of my own higher anima towards a royal consort, there is neither hint nor obvious influence that the presence of my mother could have knowingly incited it. So I will not blame any conscious motherly attraction and rivalry here accorded to any of the girls I fail to maintain a relationship with. I rather prefer that my impersonal super- divine aspect gets the better of me and demands a ritualistic context for their introduction. Moreover, I should really be looking inwards and asking myself why I would want to deny Mother Nature as her consort when I am so successful at being it. If there is any conscious rivalry in my environment then it originated with my stepfather who gets on better with me now that he also is sick and tired of my mother’s barrage of criticism and bemoaning and because of which is always threatening to leave.

I recall now, the experience I had at a festival in which I was working at one of the favourite attractions of a makeshift sauna in which men and women freely mingle; children were generally kept apart. As strangers all of us, hormones would naturally get excited. Having approached to enter nude from the outside I was suddenly faced with a beautiful naked woman who was exiting at the same time and who asked me to soap her down in the outdoor shower after it appeared that she was pursued out by another man. Touching her perfectly-formed breasts from behind and seeing her fulsome arse gave me a partial erection. I was hardly strong in this moment, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. After I spent time in the sauna I remember being approached by another woman of the same group set-up to join her in a mass dance event. But I declined on the basis that 2 young girls, children of the organisers, the aforementioned Coed Hills, had already offered a strange ceremony within the same space in which they would place candles along my back; I was only half naked at the time. When I told the woman that I was more excited being tended by 2 virgins she was bewildered to say the least. Here was a perfect example of how my impersonal unconsciousness gets the better of me. To project an unlikely scenario, there is no need to meet a woman unless I am truly lost in life. I wouldn’t have been able to write this book for a start. And to conclude on the matter, I may be in agreement with Emma Jung concerning the complication of individuality being in opposition to our sensual biological bodies governed as they are by the social prompting of our personal archetypes even if she would not agree to this allusion. But the fact that I have always been able and insightful of human relationships shows me as more than capable to make any such relationships work so long as I see the rational basis of its value. And so I do choose to be influenced unconsciously when it matters. I am just more experienced at life to know when whereas most of the women I date are half my age and haven’t yet developed this perspective. The sacrifice though is always one of spirituality in which I understand Jung’s context as the complete retraction of my feminine archetypes towards a state of impersonal androgyny. And that is where the value of ritual comes in, for it allows the lover, the mother, the hand maiden, or witch et al to fulfil their social evolution and maintain my spiritual development. It is only in this respect that Pelagianism can be reinterpreted towards a modern context that Augustine mistook as sin and subsequently inculcated the religious masses with a sense of guilt on the matter of sex. I show here that the interpretation of his understanding of rationale (mens) can be applied to sexual relations when one is aware of its evolutionary and ritualistic context.

My writing style here is a literary tool; it is meant to create the context for your understanding of the text and in no way contains any spite. Though I understand that it may be perceived as such, I try to maintain my memories and relations of the aforementioned persons on a level that is tangential to the literary level of my intelligence. That is, how I behave practically towards a higher social intelligence would warrant a change of empathy and subject matter than if my intelligence is contained to a different milieu, as my solitary farm life adduces to. And so you may see me acting very differently in the presence of anybody outside my farm, but it is farmlife that provides me the impersonal context to write from. Neither would it make sense to go into society with any apparent aggression noticeable in my writing themes. Social intelligence here shows itself to be of a higher level of the logos because it naturally discriminates and operates mainly with a communalistic prerogative, drawing up from its individual inputs the necessary jolts, shocks and attacks to the System in order to keep it in integral check. This is not unlike how an immune system functions. As and when my farmlife becomes the social project I want it to be will be the proof in the pudding behind my life philosophy. Until such time the circumstances to hand play a key role ephemerally, and the individual is not the dictator of social justice. Thus I don’t expect social justice to happen overnight; the death of culture is by a thousand paper cuts.

I understand that from my in-depth understandng of anarchism, the philosophy I profess to embrace is variously definable by every individual who upholds it. Not any single anarchist can claim to expand the ultimate, never mind a utopian, solution to society. The very basis of anarchy, as some have asserted, is its minimalist structure to society which must be

regularly performed spiritual and physical exercises, such as the various forms of yoga. Other sacrifices and penances, such as yajnas, were also performed. Many ashrams also served as gurukulas, residential schools for children under the guru-shishya tradition.”; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashram fleshed out through self-organisation. This is unpredictable because anarchism also professes to uphold the individual as a separate mutual part in the whole process, a kind of social contract which operates on the level that each individual perceives to be on. In other words, anarchism is always going to be defined idiosyncratically, and any universal application of it is downright nigh impossible. So let me add my own input here.

What if I told you that taken evolutionarily, practical anarchism is the prerogative of anybody who cares to define it through their higher intelligence. I see it as the individual quest and the further you can negotiate or navigate yourself in the contemporary social order without aggressive and militant incentives show it to be the higher form of logos with its correlative social level of intelligence found in the individual; that is not to say that the individual doesn’t have rights to change it. If that individual also shows him or herself to be exercising peace then this correlates with a higher social intelligence, and arrogates to the individual the need to be left alone. This very much resonates with Benjamin Tucker’s moral proverbial statement ‘Mind your own business’.183 (See Tucker, Benjamin, Individual Liberty (New York: Vanguard Press, 1926); Instead of a Book (New York: Benj. R. Tucker, 1897) Nobody can survive alone other than ‘consciously’, for this would be a delusion. I evolve my intelligence and being to enable myself to be left in peace, not alone, and so it is a mutual contract with society. This is the individual quest. What I have is my lot and it is not for me to take what other individuals have arrogated to themselves. As I say, society is an agglomeration of individuals. As an individual you are not there to change the system, only to be accepted and promoted by it. As Gandhi said, ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’. As an individual you have to show that your evolution and intelligence demands that the System must change too through your psychic reach. Only then will it take notice of you, like a kick in the teeth to its immune system. People like me change the System through example only. That’s what makes me a leader. It is more than duty. I am not the judge, nor the administrator; they have a duty to work through me so that in due time they will take notice of me and change the System.

There is so much more that can be said here. My own personal life throws an extraordinary amount of experience in my face, and I suppose it is only because of my awareness to deal with unconscious surfacings that my logos continues to develop. This is the balance and harmony I strive for in my life based upon the elemental force of the anima to conjure up female representatives in its striving for corporeal reality. With age these influences diminish as Mother Nature plays the greater trick in providing herself as my archetypical consort. I am more or less chosen for this path. It is also a fact I am well aware of that when I cede to personal unconscious desires I lose much of my creative abilities other than say to be just another biological number, and I am not even sure whether I have a high enough sperm count to justify wanting this. If you remember, I said that the sexual relationship I had with Kirsty seemed to be the genetic catalyst for my poetic abilities. But that was because I was falling in love with her; sexual gratification is never enough on its own. It seems to confirm that my unconscious feminine side is responsible for my insatiable creative abilities only when my swan maidens fly away from the battle scene in the flow of spiritual acts that needs deny me a female consort if only to marry me to Mother Earth. Valhalla is a place I emanate from but the social evolution that returns me there is the cultural inheritance that I must learn to deal with. It is important to take in what I just said. It is not enough to seclude oneself in their individual quests as maybe a monk or recluse would; one needs to return to society to keep it moving in the right direction as a kind of spiritual sacrifice. And in iterance of what I said earlier, one must passivate the ego and allow society (the collective consciousness) to work upon you. This is a sensual experience that acts on the body (the collective unconsciousness) to generate its personal archetypes.

There is a natural correlation here that as one gets older, and closer to the menopause in a woman’s case, so the unconscious throws up fewer archetypes, well I assume it so. And this affirms that at our base we are all biological beings which Emma Jung affirms as the real self and not the psychical projections which often characterise our personalities as a social construct. Life for everybody though, should be this aspiring towards the supra-personal self which is impersonal but which Jung says cannot be integrated with the real personal self.184 “This archetypal background explains the irresistible force which can emanate from such an anima figure; for if in it Nature herself is encountered, then it is understandable that a man may be overcome and fall into its power.” This happens particularly when no differentiation is made between the impersonal and the personal aspects of the anima. Indeed, confusing the two aspects is what gives the anima superior power over the mind, and that is why it is most important to discriminate between what belongs to the personal and what to the supra-personal. I understand then, that what Emma Jung fully means by this is that this archetype of womanhood stands over and above the man’s personal feminine aspects as if it is always calling them back and shaping them into her image – a Motherhead of sorts. And so what can be assumed is that the integration of these

183 Peter Marshall, op. cit., p651 184 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p86 feminine aspects into one’s life, for the man, is generally followed by a spiritual appreciation of nature. And in this I understand that there is an implicit understanding of balance, resolution, or creativity. In my case I have given the example of elementals playing a major role as a psychic force that controls the approach of females. My past has vindicated this with the unrelenting petition of young girls, rarely boys, whom are subliminally drawn towards the figures of Odin et al as the consorts of Mother Nature. We may ask other questions of mythological import concerning the role of ancient sun gods like the Egyptian Ra lifted into the sky by the primordial waters of Nun, or Apollo, the god of light, healing, music, poetry, archery and prophecy who replaced Helios as the sun god during the Hellenistic and Roman times and whose former consorts had associations with water or nymphs.185 Note also that Apollo was the protector of the young. And so I am a little confused by Jung because she does not flag up the religious context. Of course, all these personal archetypes, once integrated, show man to have an appreciation of nature by dint of fact that the individual must evolve. And as such by integrating them they illustrate the androgynous qualities of nature to take its cue from a distant faraway plane, almost as if they are set free. There are many psychological methods to do this, namely meditation, chanting, ritual, praying etc. Most of these are practised in a religious context even if they are being secularised to a certain extent, as in football chants, deep ecology, a minute’s silence, or joining hands in protestation to name but a few. Music itself, if you were to investigate its ancient roots shows that it primarily had a religious function. Truly the solution is communitarian; there is nothing to achieve at its exclusion.

On my own farm I am fully aware that both my mother and father have lost touch with nature, the both experiencing an inflated unconscious behaviour that seems to dominate their personalities. For instance it is rare for my father to show any romantic attitudes towards my mother whilst her projected animus seeks the gentleman or knight of her dreams. In her case I cannot help recall the image of her noble beloved father who would define the role model for all men. He was a soldier of the Spanish Civil War with a high level of command and demanded a lot of respect from his peers. Unfortunately my stepfather cannot come anywhere near that projected image, soft and tolerant as he is. His unconscious feminine side seems to constellate her behaviour and for this reason denies him achievement. Even though I think he often lacks common sense I believe he has taken a leaf out of my book because at times he has become calculating and objective. In fact he is prone now just to vacate her presence and by doing so dowses the flames of repressed psychic energy that is welling up between them, namely when they are in the same room together. Whereas I use that energy to write, perform, build etc., my father goes on long shopping trips alone or just takes himself away to his garage or friends; she is too immobile to follow him around anymore. Needless to say, he decides when to disappear now when before he was always at her command. As if to compel this evidence he listens to his music with his headphones on as much for the pleasure it gives as does the reduction in my mother’s whining. Even so, this is a recent development. The evidence shows that both their inflated anima and animus lived in each other’s shoes in a tempestuous relationship that spanned many years which gave rise to my own individuality. And maybe only I could bear the burden of their estranged company amongst my own siblings. The irony though, is that I can’t help think that my presence affects both their behaviour patterns to such an extent as to inflate their unconscious behaviour in order that I may feed off its negativity. At times it was a vicious triangle. It has always been my prerogative to expose people’s hidden sides, and I do this quite naturally. In effect this is the release of psychic energy allowing for my own impersonal projection to take hold upon my mother as my success reflects itself on the farm. It is probably the only way I can heal her, so repressed is she in consciousness. This is so apparent as to derive jealousy from my father whose years of un-accomplishment and unfulfilled dreams baulk against my own freedom and creativity to the extent that he blatantly avoids or ignores everything I do, or used to. As I say, things have been changing very gradually albeit surely and moving us closer together. It is not my ageing I feel for, it is theirs with the sense of futility that time plays even if they could be healed in my image. There is much to be said here that I won’t go into including sabotage, but of recent I have tried to correct this by providing the resources that my father requires to exercise his own creativity, allowing for providence in his life that his conscious mind would have been denied. As such I am juxtaposing myself as the supra-personal self and androgynous figure from that part of my psyche that cannot be integrated but only respected as an unconscious psychic image that the farm embodies. It is very powerful and unique. As far-fetched as this may sound to many of you let me add that it is not the image I always wanted to give of myself. I really enjoyed those moments in my life when anything happened, a curiosity for life that relished extreme behaviours and sexual licentiousness. On my own patch though, I gain in eminence.

Like Bakunin says, it is the ability to act and think deliberately that man can regulate his own needs.186 (See Arthur Lehning (ed.), Archives Bakounine, held at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam; Michael Bakunin:

185 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_deities; it is worth an exploration here to see just how many there are with feminine as well as masculine characteristics. 186 Marshall, op. cit., p290-91

Selected Writings, New York: Grove Press, 1974; G. P. Maximoff (ed.), The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, New York Press, 1953; Bakunin on Anarchy) Through his rational will he can release himself from the external world. Indeed he sees Satan as the ‘eternal rebel, the first freethinker and emancipator of the worlds.’ (See Marshall S. Shatz (ed.), The Essential Works of Anarchism, New York: Bantam, 1971) The struggle is with nature. People win their freedom from nature, which for me is already a contradiction in terms. It is this intensity to revolt and individuality that defines man above all other animals. ‘The goddess of revolt is the mother of all liberty’. As with Hegel he saw the emancipation of the individual through the growth of consciousness. For the same reason I affirm man’s very alien qualities to deny his instinctual emancipation, who must then arrogate a human social consciousness which necessitates conscious self- responsibility and, as Bakunin consoles and yet comes to the same conclusion through different means, the equality of all beings towards society. I differ here only for the means, not the ends. The struggle for me should not be a conscious struggle as Bakunin asserts. Nature is provident. What we struggle for is the freedom to define our own providence and yet man doesn’t realise this because he is too conceited. Yet Bakunin calls it is a conscious quest against nature for which I cannot agree with. Society stands as the bearer of moral behaviour, yes I can accord here, and man is the most social of all animals. I think he would have to be, bearing in mind that he lives for his own inventions; this is the predicament of human culture. As such man is a product of his environment and every individual has the capacity to think, feel, speak and will to various degrees. In fact Bakunin says it is his prerogative to continually shape the Earth according to his needs, making it habitable for human civilization. It is undoubted that Bakunin was a visionary here if only he would carry through his ethics of the equality of all beings. He saw man ultimately as an individual defined by the masses and through such forms a solidarity with it in his mutual interaction with other individuals. It is through collective labour that the yoke of external nature is thrown off. And as much as he is an individual the reciprocal will and action of the individual with the masses defines his consciousness. If I took a cynical view of this I would say that man is legion; it is his technological prowess which underlies Bakunin’s words that define his alienated being from the rest of the Earth.

Luke 12:27 King James Version (KJV) 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow, they toil not, they spin not, and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Bakunin, like the great anarchist thinkers Stirner and Proudhon, were products of the 19th century and the Age of Enlightenment. Like Nietzsche he pronounced God as dead and saw the individual as the indomitable spirit of the future. In his conception of society he understood something intrinsic about the nature of humanity, namely that man can never go it alone, not unlike an ant or a bee which forms an inseparable part of its colony. But I think he begins to distinguish himself from many other anarchist and libertarian thinkers when he tries to transpose this concept of the collective consciousness onto a level of militant and secret societies in somehow justifying his personal unconsciousness as a law unto itself. That was not to doubt his respect and upholding of other anarchist thinkers yet here his salient individualism thrives in an unstable society as Bakunin sought to follow the revolution wherever it was the most aggressive. The collapse of society would then precede his utopian paradise. He was the first to say that only through the mutual interdependence of individuals can a true society exist, collectively and morally. As such individual freedom realised through the individuals around him vindicates the anarchist will to fight for the same cause in opposition to the status quo found in the State and its apparent inequality of capital and status. His means though, were hardly peaceful, who sought spiritual emancipation any which way he could. And in fact he turned out to be a very lonely person. This is not unlike the warlike qualities of the Valkyries playing their unconscious role in the battle of humans by siding with nature and freeing man from his repressed instinct, whilst Odin trails an odious wind in their wake. The reality is that anarchism as a militant revolution acts on the impulse of the individual, which by nature is primitive, a feminine reflex if you like of the irrationality found in the patriarchal world encumbered by Jung’s riddle-guessing of the Sphinx.187 And in this I see its contradiction, in Marshall’s definition of ‘Demanding the Impossible’, in which the shadow self rears its ugly head in rejection of the patriarchal institutions that gave it birth. Without understanding his opposition to nature Bakunin gave expression to its source through his natural reaction and inflated anima, an ego of his warlike Valkyrian unconsciousness that hardly gives him time to think but ultimately will lead his heroic efforts into death and transformation. It makes you wonder what he was fighting for, precisely what is the yoke of external nature, whether it was due to his lack of a female companionship, towards a world of equality and collective labour. The self-responsibility and the communitarian values he shared rejects Rousseau’s portrayal of the isolated man living in subsistence, this latter of which is noble in itself, even though they both agree that government is an artificial institution.188 But if Bakunin doesn’t take his conscious cue from

187 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p16 188 Marshall, op. cit., p124 nature why should he expect human culture to replace it when nature is already successful? There are different degrees of development in the human spirit. They occur at different times in a person’s life; hence a true anarchist’s perception must be one of allowing continual change in consciousness and perception and the need to define one’s own providence, and this is more often than not a contract with nature. Hence I forward the spiritual cause here which will ultimately lead to Rousseau’s portrayal of the isolated man living in subsistence, but any subsequent human social orders would have to make this their starting point in justifying the level of social aspiration of its people. Interestingly, Rousseau understood the forms of government as the different degrees of inequality of the individuals who set it up, allowing for those with property to establish their prominence. In practicality though where does one put this materialist starting point in history? For me, it is not just a defining moment in government but civilization per se. It is here that authority is given weight yet misplaced in the world as the anarchist sees it.

This wrestling with nature must have always been a part of human society and in itself defines a collective consciousness that developed the primitive man in logos. In this I cede to Rousseau for having the foresight to understand the intrinsic nature of humanity. But less is said on the role of technology here, in the anarchist movement per se, as to the means by which it will arrogate authority also. Such said one can see that those who wield new technologies effect change and power. Ideologies are forms of technology too, albeit they appeal to the more masculine, objective side of human nature. In fact more modern thinkers like Gandhi clearly define a greater ecological standpoint against all forms of authority as a getting back to land ethics. In him the role of technology is moderated189 as opposed to Bookchin’s view, as well as Godwin’s190 (see Peter Marshall (ed.), The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin, (Freedom Press, 1986) and Tolstoy,191 (see Tolstoy, ‘The Slavery of our Times’, Social Evils and Their Remedy, Helen Chrouschoff Matheson (ed.), (Methuen, 1915)) who all assert that in an age of scarcity technology (or technics) has allowed us to free up more resources and liberate the individual from the repressive measures of society into one of abundance.192 As I say, these are the claims forwarded by those individuals teetering in the riddles and hair-splitting of their materialist and spiritual standpoints. To

put my case more succinctly I saw a very lucid sign in one of my favourite museums, the V&A in London, UK.

The context of this section on display was the historical transition period between modernism and post-modernism. Without repeating myself from previous writings on the matter too much I have always considered technology as something to be learnt. On doing so it draws towards one a social influence from those who want to share in this technology. Jung has already highlighted the effect of technology in the home when she says, in words of similar vein, that it frees up the woman’s instinct and creates psychic discord if she cannot develop the same level of application in her logos.193 In other words, where the woman is practical and creative, she now has to deal with machines that think for her by raising her own level of will to “meet the object at eye level.” Men can be accused of creating this discord through the inventions of its pioneering individuals even if this is a lame point. But in the 1970’s a new age was born, of postmodernism. Rather than spell it out I will just print the photo here of the notice found in the same section of the V&A.

To express this concept a little further I took a stroll around this part of the museum. Below can be seen a variety of objects that may stimulate in you the idea of what technology really is. Typically, post-modernism expressed many designs not so much for their practical applications but rather their aesthetic appeal. The era, no doubt, was an expression of material energy and the rising population of elites to control the markets and the arts. It can be no coincidence that it was also a transformative time for environmental ethics and a musical sexual revolution. There is a common denominator here, one of spiritual awareness and the development of the logos. Like I say, it seems that the material sucks in the spiritual and what we get is a new discovery of energy and the means to express it. You may argue that this is an ongoing phenomenon, because it is. And because I wasn’t around outside this period it is hard for me to perceive what post-

189 See my essay ‘Was Gandhi a forerunner for the modern-day environmental movement, in particularly addressing 3 criterion for this perspective, namely: A “true” Christian; An implicit green philosophy; The religious use of politics’ in the appendix of Book 1, An Anthropological Guide to permaculture 190 Marshall, op. cit., p215 191 Ibid., p377 192 Ibid., pp609-10 193 Jung, Emma, op. cit., p7 industrial society really is. But my intuition tells me everything is speeding up and getting smaller, and doesn’t last as long as it used to. This is really interesting. If I were to graft a particular variety of a developed fruit, say an apple, onto a natural rootstock, it sucks the energy out of it so that the tree produces fruit earlier in its life, grows smaller, and lives shorter. In the environmental movement we don’t really mind this effect because it means now the consumer can partially take control over his own sustenance by planting that grafted tree in his or her own back garden instead of relying on a commercial orchard. Many of these dwarfing rootstocks were developed during the 20th century at research stations like Malling in the UK. Considering the knowledge of grafting goes back thousands of years to the Mesopotamian period we should ask how and why does technology speed up culture, and does it really resolve anything. The simple answer is that human culture does no more than chase its own tail. There are many farmers like me who enjoy the slower simpler life and feel fuller in our spirits for it. Undoubtedly though, we all like a bit of technology to say the least, because it means we can put up our feet and have time to think. This is not a moot point, it is exactly what happens. We start making decisions that look like we are chasing after freedom, as technology is acclaimed to bring. But unless we are unconsciously motivated in its (invisible) use technology itself can be quite repressive. The use of my wireless speaker, with a life-expectancy that lasts as long as its rechargeable battery, gives me immense joy and shows that sensually technology can be very useful when I only have myself to entertain. But as a tentative point it also appears to substitute the collective consciousness. Technology has uncovered a huge reservoir of untapped energy in multitudinous forms, and the more this energy is exploited the less inclined is culture to be spiritual, i.e. equal. For this reason I cannot agree with Jung who denotes the spiritual as a development of the logos, because as a development of the rational will it doesn’t solve any problems. More importantly it doesn’t heal culture. Spirituality, to be recognized in culture, must show its worth to raise the masses in solidarity towards equality, and that must be the goal of technology also. Surely that has always been the religious message without the hair-splitting inconveniences of its doctrines. Hence at the same time that these post-war industries were flooding the markets with atomic energy and chemical research, we get the sensual masses rising in sexual and musical

union.

The co-founder of the permaculture movement David Holmgrem wrote:

“Once the bioregional patterns of modest ecological design become established, we will see the re-emergence of bio-regional aesthetics... can be seen as distilled patterns specifically attuned to human sensory response, which reinforces the recognition of appropriate patterns.”194

What he is professing here is that permaculture, as a design philosophy, amalgamates the best of technology and the best of traditional practice to create a sustainable future. Holmgrem, like many pioneers, are visionaries. Dumping a load of technologies on the planet doesn’t put the billions of other brains into action. We must integrate with the planet and understand its needs through bio-regional recognition. Many traditional cultures had an indepth understanding of the distribution of food sources and territorial claims over a wide area, and this is no different to being an animal or insect. It may be argued that the other-worldliness of humanity means it goes beyond Gaia and looks towards the stars. Technology, truly, for it to replicate nature’s patterns means it has to be adapted locally and controlled locally. And this is how I understand the above aphorism, that unless technology is “invisible” so that it does not interfere with the healing processes of the collective consciousness (the soul-force) we only continue to chase our own tails. An example of this maybe would be to design our food systems according to how much water the land can recharge naturally, and then to design our population control accorded to the best case scenarios for healthy food production. But in my own experience I see humanity pitched against nature and it is because of this that I personally adhere to a more spiritual viewpoint, like Gandhi and Tolstoy, towards providence in nature. Because it is technology, and although an aid in the human struggle against nature, it still defines a shrinking environment. Look at the images below.

194 Holmgrem, D., Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Holmgrem Design Services (Victoria, Australia, 2002), p152

Somebody came up with the idea to build a toaster from scratch using micro technologies. After several hundred hours of work the conclusion was that the cost of such an invention did not justify its production. The energy required to build such a thing is transgenerational and transcultural – it cannot be measured in real terms, and nor can its affect on the environment. It is a revelation that for the most part had missed Bookchin et al. Technology in many ways has been the measure of human civilization, the means to making the unconsciousness conscious, but at what expense? It’s the individuation process that removes us from the pure gifts of nature, from its elemental power over humanity. To name but a few these have been typically represented in the ancient past by divine figures such as Cybele and Aphrodite - in the last analysis, the Goddess Nature.195 “This archetypal background explains the irresistible force which can emanate from such an anima figure.”196 And so, where in the past we personified these unconscious stirrings into the images of gods and goddesses, we now give them form through the means of technology and create God and the environment in our own image. Without sounding hypocritical or contradictory, we need to put in place the checks to human exploitation and expansion, hence the spiritual awareness that will allow us to model the future on human terms. Is God dead?

In my experience, nature eventually catches up, and the adjourning of technology, through what I term as “genetic culmination”, is rendered obsolete. I normally attribute this term to the human sexual cycles because I discovered something very personal in its nature. I realised that men have sexual cycles too only that, because it is not apparent biologically like the female menstrual period, it is obscured in its socio-psychological activity. A genetic culmination indicates the social consciousness the individual is locked into accorded to his or her sexual activity. What is important to correlate here is that the phenomenon is mainly described by the level of technology in society, remembering that technology is a development of the rational will incurred by the build up of psychic energy, so that more often than not we are referring to how the individual successfully ascribes its use in their own personal lives. This level of success is directly related to one’s genetic cycles and culminates in the skilful manipulation of technology in the form of a psychical power transferred through one’s social groups. I am making reference again to one’s psychic reach and the function of the higher and lower anima, as I did concerning my activities on the farm and the role of the impersonal, only in this case the woman mentioned came up against its natural defences; if you remember, the royal archetypes of the higher anima draw one back towards the impersonal and the development of the individual spiritual quest whilst the lower anima, represented by its acquiescence to the sentient masses and the collective consciousness, pulls one in the other direction towards the release of one’s unconscious personal archetypes in accordance to its social inheritance. By stretching your imagination you may be able to visualize how the impersonal, embodied in the environment as a factor of its wild energies, limits the psychic reach of one’s conscious use of technology including the sexual use of humans. But this is not to say that human technological societies don’t succeed; they do on the basis of the alienaton of man to live in them. How often we read cases of hidden sexual abuses by those who are disaffected from society as a whole. In effect, this power is a factor of the individual’s personal evolution to draw down the collective consciousness (the soul-force) and to be able to recognize it as an influence in one’s unconsciousness. In so doing you are naming the demon in order to ‘kill’ it towards your own individuation. Technology here is then experienced as an inheritance maintained and upheld through the aspirations of human culture in general but contextualized by the society one lives in through its laws and traditions. Like I say though, every culture will have a different level of application, as for instance with traditional or religious ones. The same may be said with communalistic or capitalistic societies. To qualify this point a little further though, its successful use through learning is a factor of one’s genetic culmination which happens when the individual fulfils his or her sexual cycle either through actual copulation, nocturnal emissions, or masturbation but this phenomenon is, as I say, obscured by one’s socio-psychological programming. You need only look at the history of human invention to note that the great pioneers of technological societies were frequently making contact with each other both consciously and unconsciously in their psychic reach either through philosophical or reading circles but they also necessitated “created space” in which the individual toiled with these wild energies that impersonally infused his or her environment. And to add, no society was exempt from this effect no matter if they were religious,

195 E. Jung, op. cit., p76 196 Ibid., p86 militant or just plain agricultural, and this applies today also. The complication appears more obscured by the fact that most technologies warrant a certain level of rational development in the logos, so that a patriarchal society in which women feel suppressed or are uneducated inhibit this psychic transfer of the inherited value of technology. When seen on the greater level technologies will eventually run their course and be replaced by newer ones, and this happens with increasing facilitation in alienated human societies in which the impersonal is pushed out ever further away from common life. In other words, the masses become the brunt of unacknowledged unconscious behaviour; gone is the ritual that once formed the mythopoetic life of the individual.

In my earlier books I referred to consciously motivated sexual activity, as opposed to unconsciously, as the means to enforced subjectification, and by this I mean that it relates to the manner in which the instinct is consciously repressed by one’s own actions upon themselves. This is another important point to take onboard since it affects how these genetic cycles pan out in our lifestyles by distancing ourselves from spiritual emancipation. To the contrary I recall my own life in which I was unconsciously, not consciously, repressed in my sexual drive which has contributed to what I have become today. I used to let a lot of potential relationships go on the basis that I always believed in predestination. I realise now that a lot of the inherited problems I did succumb to must have been due to my conscious drive for sex and the demurring of my genetic cycles. Learning is a factor of growth within the individual so that being celibate and having nocturnal emissions is a way of realigning our natural behaviour to knowledge through, what Christianity terms as, sapientia as opposed to scientia. Now, I have already recounted these phenomena earlier in relation to free will. Sapientia is referred to as knowledge of God and scientia as knowledge of the world. In effect I am giving ear to Augustines’s fallen man. It is apparent then, to be a responsible individual necessitates more than having a high intellect. It implicates the need for a set of ethics that should inform our conscious wills. These ethics, in whatever context they are understood, form the parameters for the limitations of the human will. Where I believe those most liberated lead the simplest lives and have direct communion with the natural landscape, Christianity, we must remember, developed from its origin of wandering holy men into a full-blown urban phenomenon by the time of Augustine. He observed, in his rejection of pagan neoplatonic theurgy, that only the authority of particular scripture and the acquisition of correct knowledge would suffice.197 This was not much different to how earlier Roman society functioned, including the practice of prayer, ritual, and sacrifice, but it is apparent that unethical individualism in such a milieu had already got the better of its morals, and so began the utopianism of an Augustinian vision for a complete Christian society. It was Augustine’s intention to exonerate God from all blame of the actions incurred by human free will in vigorously expounding his neoplatonic intellect in a new Christian take on the human body joined with its soul through faith; and this through the light of God in which only certain divinely revealed knowledge was appropriate, hence the higher anima. But this was thwart with difficulties, as I have already expounded and will try not to repeat too much of it. It was a battle of words, literally, between pagans and Christians, in which Augustine gets the upper edge through his own metaphysical enquiries. His early Platonic view that the soul was the true self physically encumbered by an evil body was espoused by Ambrose who wrote De bono mortis (On the Good of Death), a view that radically changed by the time he reached the thirteenth book of the City of God.198 The “good” death was not anymore the liberation of the soul but rather a genuine evil since God had always intended the body and soul to belong together.199 Indeed, Thomas Williams identifies how Augustine affirms the need for the physical freedom of the soul200 (in Latin: liberum arbitrium. (St. Augustine. trans. Thomas Williams, On Free Choice of the Will, (Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis / Cambridge, 1993), pp. XI)) by which one is delivered to the imago Dei. He then attributes a metaphysical freedom, I assume, to those lax libertarian individuals whose souls are physically imprisoned and as such are motivated towards the lower anima of sentient desire as a rational drive towards self-gratification at the expense of the crying masses. In effect, it occludes the aspiration for the need of a belief in a predetermined universe of which is now in total opposition to Augustine’s vision. In the final books of the City of God it is this loss of faith in God’s spirit which defined his sin-grace model; salvation should not be a flight but an intensification of the body’s incorruptible union with the soul.201 Eternal death is now envisioned as a type of psycho- somatic pain experienced by the soul in its enforced bodily imprisonment.

Augustine wanted to adjoin eros with the bona fide granted by the inherited traditions of the history of God’s grace, not the laissez-faire attitudes of a sexualised materialist society. Indeed Hunter forwards the Augustine assertion that

197 Paul Harrison, op.cit., pp1-4 198 David Hunter, op. cit., p360 199 Ibid., ff. p357 200 Paul Harrison, op.cit., p4 201 David Hunter, op. cit., p361 individuation and pluraility are the result of the creative will of God.202 And by this I understand him as a preliminary psychologist who saw the threat of unregulated behaviour to repress the individual in his or her alienation from nature. This laissez-faire approach to public life is akin to Socrates in his admonition of Athenian democracy in favour of “the one who knows” of which I talk about elsewhere. And this is interesting, since through his own introspection and being widely read which would have included the dialogues of Ancient Greece, (Augustinus, A. (1970). St. Augustine's Confessions (The Loeb classical library 27). Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard university. Pp. 135 - 150) Paul Harrison attributes to him the jesuit/socratic idea ‘that right knowledge is dependent upon right love rather than right love dependent upon right knowledge’, (Ibid., Robert E. Cushman, (Dec., 1950), pp. 271-294) “and a statement of ever lasting good will in the nature of the human being intelligent and not doing wrong things intentionally.” (Plato, Protagoras, (345 d-e)) For Augustine faith was a core attribute lacking in pagan society which, as a psychologist, signified disrespect even blatant denial, of the impersonal and the loss of the higher self (mens) where he locates the imago Dei. Going was the proto-scientific age of the Greek classicists but in its place was the insurrection of a sexually-technologized human being.

There can be no doubt though, that Augustine’s neoplatonic upbringing was rediscovered with Christianity after the obscure years of Manicheanism:

“With you as my guide I entered into my innermost citadel, and was given power to do so because you had become my helper (Ps 29:11). I entered with my soul’s eye, such as it was, saw above that same eye of my soul the immutable light higher than my mind […]. The person who knows the truth knows it, and he who knows it knows eternity. Love knows it. Eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity: you are my God” (VII.10.16).203

Under the initial influence of Ambrose and Simplicianus this image of a personal God who forgives began to mature; not only the logos of the Neoplatonists but the incarnate Word, the Logos that became important. A humble God, who calls himself the truth, was something alien to a Roman mind in antiquity.204 Always testing those boundaries, Augustine emphasized consistently the relationship between knowledge of the self and that of God, indeed it is the intellectual quest in which he confesses in the Soliloquies to know God and the soul, nothing more.205 Such knowledge then, accorded to the act of faith, is likewise accessible to all, not just the learned, but it requires a simple faith towards the conscious will to do good. And in this noble vision he upheld the role of his own mother in her uneducated upbringing to find God. But Augustine has had his critics, and here we can see his reflection throughout the last two millenia into modern times through the sometimes vulgar rejection of religion by many libertarian thinkers. I have mentioned just a few whose metaphysical critiques grace the pages of history yet it is interesting to note how widely they do differ. For instance, according to Pagels Augustine’s concept of concupiscence implicates that nobody has free will under the inheritance of original sin.206 (Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, 107-108 and 111-112) Pagels goes on to say that if the individual can’t do good then it implies the state must step in which arrogates a form of “coercive government” (Ibid., 116) and quotes Augustine, “God allowed us to sin in order to prove to us from our own experience that ‘our true good is free slavery’—slavery to God in the first place, and, in the second, to his agent, the emperor” (Ibid., 120) It is precisely my point I make above, that it is the laissez-faire attitudes of individuals to disenchant themselves first with nature and then with religion that they become materialists. And it strengthens my point that a lack of acknowledgement of the impersonal and the workings of the divine does not reflect itself in one’s personal environment, hence the individual is prone to dependence upon a technologized society that alienates and feeds the human soul. And this leads the individual to exploit through their psychic reach the objects of society. But I would also ask you to remember that I differ in imy interpretation of the soul from Augustine and the Church per se.

In the continuing individuation process one’s personal experience with nature shows old technologies ever failing to sustain themselves. Like I say though, the psychic affirmation of technology continues in my opinion to alienate the human animal from its instinct so as to encumber the individual with “human-technologized” sexual cycles but who are then eventually drawn back towards genetic culmination depending on how evolved one is in their unconscious. What I am actually vindicating here is that ever since the birth of technology we see the correlate fragmentation of consciousness that allows for man to transcend in his instinct but who then must capitulate this rational will one way or another,

202 Ibid., p357 203 Quoted in ‘Question, God and Truth in Augustine’s Confessions’, David Vopřada, Catholic Faculty of Theology, Charles University in Prague, pp11-12 204 Ibid., p15 205 Ibid., pp17-18 206 Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D., op. cit., p23 sexually. Consciously-motivated sex will enforce this alienation of the instinct and the sensual body, but unconsciously a nocturnal emission is the means to continue spiritual development. As far as I know, in view of the fact that I still have them, it is the growth mechanism that regulates human behaviour. Hence children are always want to return to nature in their unconscious opposition to rational development. This is not unlike the mother goddess calling back her personal archetypes through the spiritual transformation of the individual’s consciousness.207 And by this I mean that the personal unconsciousness, fed by its interaction with the collective consciousness (the soul-force), must bear the burden of Augustine’s Fall from grace. In these phenomena I am indicating the natural genetic cycles that instinctively draws the individual back towards the collective unconsciousness and the impersonal, feeling aspect of his or her biological nature; it is primitive. Every individual is different and evolves at different levels of acculturation, but technologies I iterate tend to define alienated social spheres and the soul-force of those groups that make it up. I earlier referred to Gandhi in recollection of the need for the spinning wheel or charkha that defined the meditative force of his associates to bind themselves into a matrix of independence, solidarity and protest; its symbolic associations had psychosomatic implications here. That is not to say that one technology would work for another individual. It all depends on one’s evolution and comprehension of the phenomena at hand. But the increase in global communications means that international social aspirations tend to align themselves more closely together and thus share much of the same technologies.

I may argue for the need to be celibate, as many religionists have done. My basis being that we can remove ourselves from these technologized sexual cycles inherited from the collective consciousness. This then, will draw us closer to the impersonal and thus align our biological make-up more closely with nature and the sensual body in allusion to Augustine’s union of eros and fide. Sexually we would experience nocturnal emissions at the exclusion of masturbation and self-gratification. In effect we become children of Gaia in a return to our androgynous roots. That doesn’t mean that we lose our biological ability to procreate, rather it remains latent. Why, animals, insects and plants must all continue to reproduce. But by identifying our natural sexual cycles we become more unconscious and this explains my interpretation of androgyny – the need to obviate our gender roles. Instead of being masculine and feminine, we return ourselves to being male and female. Like I say, androgyny is not conducive to survival as I cannot imagine how we can lose these gender labels without being celibate in the beginning since the means to become purely human animals is beyond our rationale. It would suggest though, that these are the natural checks in nature that prevent its exploitation, in which disease is a cyclical means to inhibit over-development of the individual.208 And of course, this can be applied to all life- forms albeit Augustine had the intuition here to associate his grace-sin model to human culture. Hence Mother Nature takes its cue from the impersonal too. As such then, it can be no coincidence that such a phenomenon allows for greater solidarity and collectivity; we begin to identify with a greater cause and a greater consciousness. It advocates greater peace through less conflict and more recognition. Rather than being Bakunin’s confused individual always looking for the fight in justification of his personal unconscious yearnings, we are instead drawn towards Jung’s individual opposed to the personal unconsciousness in our development of the higher self, Augustine’s mens.It places the individual in the social consciousness, at the same time aspiring to an equality that precludes the demands of a patriarchal society so that women in particular lose that repressive feminine label whilst men stop being its prime movers. This was the phenomenon of the early Church which was subsequently buried in centuries of doctrine. Yet the modern movement has seen the re- emergence of the female voice slowly developing through the rise of female individualism to control their own sexual behaviour as their menstrual cycles dictate, but that rather than take an extreme feminist viewpoint they would need to further align this female characteristic through celibacy too. It is no mystery that women collectively synchronise their menstrual cycles with each other when in their own company. This can only be a factor of celibate relations by which I understand requires the restraining of one’s sexual habits. Nevertheless, the closer we draw towards the culmination of our unconscious (genetic) cycles, which in my personal experience makes me increasingly creative, if we remain “undeveloped” accorded to our level of social equality stemming from the higher self we start to fantasize in our wishful thinking because our personal nature is want to consummate the act psychically towards its soul-force. All said, without that correlative rational development that society aspires to in its ethical structures I just find that technologies fail me because in themselves they demand one’s integration with the collective consciousness. They always go wrong, as I am prone to experience, being so isolated on the farm sometimes, even if this isolation is more apparent in built-up

207 I have illustrated these depths of consciousness quite extensively in my very first books, Being – The Evolution of Consciousness and The Magicians’s Handbook. It is not my intention to repeat this material just yet but to develop these immediate writings towards that goal. 208 The current Covid-19 is a case in point, now a pandemic that is forcing the collapse of the world-wide economy through the exigent measures all governments are taking in trying to prevent its further spread. At the current time of writing the official deathrate is around 1 in 25 from those who contract the virus. environments. However, I have been mitigating these effects, albeit by socialising with a learned discrimination. In other words I choose my social groups on the basis that I arrogate natural relations. I don’t think one can choose willy-nilly who they think should be a part of that psychic circle for the very obvious self-explicatory reason that psychically we know what is right for us and everybody is an individual dealing with their own unconscious projections. Hence society, no matter how much it aspires to equality, still maintains a hierarchical structure emanating from our inner development. It is the appreciation of this that allows for equality which I believe the likes of Bakunin and Proudhon’s equality of respect, and many other references by anarchist thinkers, actually realise. If one chooses to ignore this then the effects may be reversed. I recall those stories of soul-seekers being turned away from Buddhist temples but I wonder at those monasteries and other religious centres that don’t discriminate on the basis of their spiritual values. The laity has always been a necessary social cog in the mechanism of things and different religions have different methods of approach. I think any great spiritual leader will tell you the same though, which is why leadership is very important at discerning the needs of the collective. However, I am not saying that I have complete control over this situation; there have been times in the past when a woman turns up unexpectedly, an unwanted policeman knocks on your door, or a planning officer cares to inspect your land to name but a few instances, and these are the jolts and shocks to the system that must be worked out.

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And so you may understand now why I considered unnatural concentrated environments like cities as being the breeding grounds for alienated conscious souls; much of it is to do with the lack of spiritual integration of its leadership with the masses. Our soul-force is what binds technological societies together whereas the natural affinity that Kropotkin talked about in the animal and plant kingdoms is by all means unconscious. In cities though, the reverse is realised, and yet the natural economy is still at work only that the balance of power dictates a greater apparent inequality accorded to who governs the most needed resources. This is not an equality of respect when abuses go unseen. As such powerful individuals in politics and economics, surrounded by subordinates, have the technologized potential to defy this moment of genetic culmination and a realignment with nature on the basis that they thrive within their soul-force. They are, of course, fuelled by their material freedom and the psychic arena within which they lead. This has been sexually exercised, i.e. using people as one would manage a commodity, and results in repressing their genetic cycles (enforced subjectification)209 encumbent in such milieus. Eventually though, whether by hook or crook, the shrinking environment of a man’s collective soul is re-subsumed into the unconscious and motivation is superseded by our real selves. I cannot emphasize this point too much. It is so often the case that the moment before death is also a psychic release. This moment is very important in the conscious life of the individual for it represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of another. It accords to how important the individual serves the unconscious in pertinence to how one’s soul-force will generate continued influence and power in society. Spiritually, this power may be obscured or hidden in built-up environments, but materially it is very apparent in the subordinate structures of economic social salience. For this reason it must be acknowledged as a definable moment of growth, for both evolution and (d)evelopment,210 both in the individual and society, when the impetus of a consciously-motivated ethics can be realised through a change of behaviour, and the more these ethics align with an environmental awareness the greater the harmony and aspiration of human culture to work with nature in its unconscious motivation. It is the moment Man becomes consciously free to choose his path towards unconscious freedom or conscious freedom, towards his individuation. The latter, of course, is complete self-delusion; freedom is the will to, not from environmental determination. It is this environmental interface that borders the unconscious in which its spiritual context places the individual firmly in the hands of an aspiring and upward-moving society defined by its communication networks, however large. This is what many great spiritual thinkers acknowledge, as in Augustine’s mens, even if it is contextualized in a secular environment too, that the more we evolve and expand in consciousness as individuals the greater the realisation of a pre-destined will. On doing so, the individual is reconnected with the sensual masses in its higher rationale, one that directly responds to the needs of the environment. But of course, the premise of this philosophy of mine is that man defies extinction. It is only natural then, you may think, to procreate

209 There seems to be a tendency in these writings to return back to the first books I wrote and the terminology I invented to explain my ideas. 210 In my previous writings I make a distinction here between evolution and devolution from which the word ’development ‘ originates in its context of being consciously motivated as opposed to unconsciously. indefatigably, and the question I must ask is then, ‘Are there any exceptions to this rule? I have answered this question implicitly I feel, and the matter is based upon the metaphysical idea of a societas spiritualis. I may be referring to the fact that until the individual finds their true nature only then can he or she choose to procreate, and that was the prerogative of Adam from Eve.

Writing in the 1940’s for the Freedom press, an anarchist by the name of Alex Comfort made some interesting remarks concerning Barbarism and Sexual Freedom, (Freedom Press, 1948), towards an anarchist perspective on the sociology of sex.211 He, like I, draws on psychoanalysis and social anthropology. ‘Power-centred’ cultures, he suggests, are found in ‘patriform’ societies based upon jealousy of the father and emphasize command, prohibition and coercion. (Comfort, Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State: A Criminological Approach to the Problems of Power, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950, p78). The interesting point he makes here is that, as a sexual substitute or compensation for affection and status, the desire for power requires self-identification with and in context of a coercive father, and by this I believe he alludes to the male line. This hails to a Freudian image and the oedipal complex alluded to earlier but which roots the problem in cities and the inherited patriarchal system of rule that gave rise to them. I don’t believe it is that simple, certainly the male figure of the family cannot be wholly responsible for the creation of cities and their competitive edge towards self-identification. Firstly, all cultures have power, with both feminine and masculine intentions, by dint of their coming together as a result of its diverse and politicized individuals. But just as the history of the Church often indicates there is always an enduring spiritual renaissance fermenting below the fiscal relations of its economic face pushing for its development. And in this case I think the concept of power is misunderstood, as there are always natural power relations albeit intangible for which I referred to as the equality of respect, reference Proudhon. And then to say that this power is dominated by a type of masculine coercion carried in the jealousy between father and child takes away any idea that the father could also have been the inspiration and model toward cooperation and social salience. Likewise just because one is lacking in affection or sexual compensation is not a given in terms of the pursuit of power, which I assume Comfort is reterring to materially, although there can be little doubt that sexual relations firmly holds the individual within the sensual masses as opposed to Jung’s sense of individuality. In effect Comfort goes against the idea that real power is spiritual, which would necesitate a balanced diet of both masculine and feminine attributes found in the individual. I think even Jung would concord here. As such, power is not so much a case of social salience, but individuality and natural influence. To complicate matters even more, in my own experience I disregard the presence of my own father towards any identification of my self on the basis that I view his life as a failure of relations, reference Augustine. But then Comfort does talk about matriform societies of which I mention in a bit, and seems to be indicating that rather than power he is more referring to the root of materialism in the context of patriform societies. What this insight does confirm is that patriarchy as an institution is common-place and feeds off the imbalance of power relations in such a milieu. In other words, an immature individual coming to terms with their own emotions is more likely to be aggressive and push for dominance rather than cooperate in the inequality of a city-setting where the interplay of material resoucres is the inherited social values

As I say, I am prone to relate these phenomena to Augustine’s own life here, only it may be unfair to do so since he mentions practically nothing of his own father. But we can make some assumptions of the Roman society he lived in and proudly upheld based on the conventions of the time. As such the power-centred cultures Comfort purports to are nothing new in civilization where there is an inequality of wealth and a correlate elitism. What we do know though, is that Augustine sought prestige in his early life and recognition probably because of the lack of a father influence; he was practically ignored in the Confessions.212 On entering the Church we note that his intellectual will was boosted in the presence of Ambrose who must have come over as a father figure of sorts but which we know Augustine increasingly wanted to distance himself from.213 (Cavadini 1999) Again, I equate to this personally, I mentoned very early on that I also had a strong father-like influence from my elder brother who acted as a mentor. Had he been around for any longer I may have been able to bypass the obscure years of my 20’s and the personality breakdown I was recovering from. Now, this is even more intriguing. I wonder if all those children who show something of a kindred spirit to their ‘father’, on obtaining power, can continue to re-identify with the feminine in them and the terms of one’s unconscious? For me, this would be true power and influence. In a word, it would be healing and spiritual and so Augustine must have felt this when first entering the Church and its cooperative spirit. It is indubitable then, that once Augustine had the reins of the Early Church in his hands we find him as a focal point of women’s intentions, especially in his own admiration of his royal mother who now unconsciously represents the higher anima in him recalling back the personal archetypes of his once

211 Peter Marshall, op. cit., pp594-5 212 Paul Johnson, op.cit., p113 213 David Hunter, op. cit., p360

Manichean immaturity in the quest for true knowledge.

“The personification of what “the true religion” means is Augustine’s mother Monnica. Augustine describes her life pattern as “deeply religious” or “the most religious one” (VI.2.2). It is with her that Augustine shares the mystical ecstasy in Ostia before her death (IX.23.24). When she dies, her son characterises her as “a religious and pious soul” (IX.11.28). In his early philosophical dialogues, Monnica acts as one of the participants of the debates about the most essential philosophical topics and she tends to be the one who solves the problem in a very simple yet profound manner. She is the incarnation of Augustine’s conviction that truth, the true religion and the true God are not accessible only to the learned or to philosophers but to any man or woman despite being uneducated and simple. “214

Remembering that monica has been stylized in the image of Eve by the Church as well as my reference earlier that Augustine played on the model of the Virgin Mary to Christ, the deeper psychological exegesis would mythically continue this “social inheritance” to Isis and the bearer of the heir. This pushes Augustine’s individuality to ever deeper unconscious motives as the now patristic figure becomes saviour for a declining empire in Rome. The popular cult of Isis was still extant at the time of Augustine having spread to Greece, Phoenicia and Rome, even superceding the resurrection theology of Osiris in Egypt, but the correlations are intriguing.215 Indeed, I believe it could have profoundly influenced Augustine who would have been very aware of its pagan context, having outlastied most other beliefs after the establishment of Christianity in which she is now the protagonist cast in the light of creator and restorer of order; Isis would have been at the head of pagan resistance to Christianity. As I earlier recounted, the passive view of Augustine towards his mother would suggest the royal archetypes of his unconscious were intimately linked to the concepts of fertility and resurrection prevalent throughout his North African roots. Indeed, before even the Israelite exodus and beginning in the Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1802 BCE) people were drawn from all over Egypt to participate in this drama through a type of ritualistic bonding during a great festival. It was known as The Contention Between Horus and Set, re- enacted in mock battles between the followers of Horus and those of Set in which it seems anyone could participate. As such, order would be restored and Osiris’ golden statue emerged from its darkness in his temple at Abydos. The important point here is that everybody participated because everybody depended on the rise and fall of the Nile River towards the agricultural production of the land; the famous flail representing its fertility and the shepherd's crook that of his rule, synonymous with every subsequent Horus-king. In time though, the focus turned to Isis the creator of the universe by which all other gods and goddesses were eventually subsumed.

In addition to these references and my earlier exegesis concerning the impersonal and the role the environment plays in the divine vindication for one’s rule, in the myth of Isis as the mother of all kings and the queen of heaven she continued to embody the most important values of Egyptian culture, namely harmony, order, eternal life, and gratitude. These principles embodied in the masculine-feminine dichotomy of a son-mother relationship can hardly be denied social passage here. As a take on the oedipal complex Augustine poses a different version of events but who nevertheless wins the love of his mother from his dead father and rules jointly with her. In terms of the assertions of Alex Comfort there appears to be a rivalry here with the father as now the mature Augustine enters the Church in celibacy and the loss of his sexual appetite. Instead the patristic voice now seeks the power of the empire only in this case it is its spiritual arm. It can almost be directly related to Set's resentment of Osiris, “the earthly emperor” whose realm grew from a lack of gratitude and envy for someone else's good fortune, in Augustine’s case Christianity during the steady fall of Rome. But the Egyptian inheritance elaborates even further. Ingratitude was considered a kind of "gateway sin" leaving the individual prone to continue sinning in view of a lack of spiritual faith.216 This uncertainty generated by the ‘inequality of respect’ is also the story of the myth of the victory of order over chaos and the establishment of harmony in the land, Augustine’s societas Christiana. Being an African himself I believe he felt the Egyptian connection and may have even visited the great sites of Bubastis, Busiris, Abydos, Thebes, Memphis and Cairo. These were all great religious centers, Alexander too no doubt for its Greek heritage and massive library resources.

The point I want to make here is that, for all intents and purposes, environments like cities in which resources are concentrated are immature if their distribution renders the populous unequal. It is hardly a moot point to note that the Romans inherited a slave culture as Greece and Egypt were. They can hardly be accused of inventing inequality, and as a

214 David Vopřada, op. cit., p16 215 Joshua J. Mark, op. cit.

216 Ibid. successful system of resource management its individualism continued to pave the way for ever-disputatious European societies that modelled their aspirations on them. Effectively technology, which includes its ideology, will describe the goals of culture ad infinitum by freeing up more resources, and as such is the means for further exploitation in concentrated environments like cities to thrive in. These are Comfort’s power centers that breed material competition whose ethics, more to the point their lack of them, would subsequently open up half the world in the discovery of the Americas and Australia. Yet if we are to follow our sensual and natural inclination to decentralise culture so that we are more in tune with our higher selves, had it not been Augustine it may well have been another bishop of his time who would create the vision of a complete Christian society. That was the potential age they were living in, which at the time was Roman, a spiritual renaissance for the unification of the world through ritual and its religious acknowledgment of its feminine creative aspects. Even if Rome still had its important and popular pagan celebrations it would need to run its ‘apocalyptic’ course once it had exhausted all spiritual potentials in the eyes of the Christian forefathers, and this was no more apparent than in the now defunct customary civic worship of the Emperor cult which had standardized much of the official religious protocol. A classic example was the mid-December celebration of Saturnalia (December 25 in the Julian calender) that honoured the agricultural god Saturn in its early association with Christmas.217 Its ancient solstice offerings and sacrifices were connected with the winter sowing season, bearing in mind this is a Mediterranean climate. It’s interesting to note that even slaves did not have to work for this week-long festival and sometimes would sit at the head of the table and be served by the master. Togas were shed and colourful clothing called synthesis was worn instead. Homes were likewise decorated with greenery and wreaths. It is such feminine aspects that defined the rites and practices of those cultures in which the impersonal is celebrated directly through the people’s participation in the environment, and this emulated the higher rationale that such festivities arrogated over the élite. Primitive cultures are an example of this because they are wholly religious. Just as in Egypt where everybody was invited to visit the temple complex and make offerings, those feminine aspects manifest in the role of the priests who grant prayers and give aid, medical advice and counsel. We still see these cultures exisiting traditionally today, for instance the Australian Aboriginal, the Scandinavian Sámi or Laplanders, or the Siberian Inuit. They may be patriarchal but the feminine is enacted through direct contact with the landscape. And this phenomenon can still operate within secular societies albeit its spiritual impetus is found in modern-day movements like animal, migrant or women’s rights, as well as environmentalism including organic food production and countryside protection. I will show later that these unconscious stirrings are exactly what Jung refers to in male attitudes towards society in particular when they seek those feminine qualities of companionship that once were found in the religious rites of the clergy and exuded by the spiritual and the holy per se.

There is a great ecological principle at work here. Holmgrem puts it succinctly, even if I don’t mind quoting it again:

“When the field is new and open, competition is a natural response... Continuous growth and change based on the tapping of new and larger resources has created a global culture in which economic competition and personal competition have become dominant forces.”218

In centralised systems the pattern really hasn’t changed; it is the modus operandi of capitalist societies. Importantly though, ethics must develop if the system is to mature.

“In nature, systems that are immature and growing rapidly, in a situation of surplus free energy, tend to be dominated by competitive relationships; mature systems, in which there is little free or surplus energy, show a high degree of mutualistic and symbiotic relationships... in stable, traditional societies where all resources are fully allocated, defined roles, mutual obligations, gifting, taxation and other social mechanisms prevail over competitive ones.”219

For me it highlights that the motive to compete is an individual conscious act, what you may refer to as rational action within those milieus where resources are concentrated, but to assimilate or cooperate is generally unconscious in its sensual empathy; people are naturally drawn together as an intuitive response to feel that they belong to a greater cause. But that the fragmentary nature of concentrated milieus rather does just that in which, as social animals, humans desire the approval and affection of others but seem to vie for it in these shrinking alien environments which dominates the spirit of nature. This is Comfort’s perspective too, one centred upon an urban mentality, including the views of many other commentators. It is the individuation process without the ethics of reintegration so to speak. In fact Comfort argues that the modern State attar+cts maladjusted people because it is a haven for delinquents, I assume on the basis that non-

217 https://www.history.com/amp/topics/ancient-rome/saturnalia updated August 21, 2018 218 Holmgrem, D., op. cit., p168 219 Holmgrem, D., op. cit., p167 conformism is more attractive as an attitude toward self-identification.220 (Alex Comfort, ibid.) This has shown man to be more aggressive in “evolutionarily” terms (Nature and Human Nature, 1966) even if such individual ‘rationality’ is still capable of outbursts of sociality, much of it, as Kropotkin would vouch for, to do with our alienation from our animal mode. But I do support this thesis even if Peter Marshall does not find a convincing argument here, that “Humanity maintains itself by an aggressive attitude towards its environment.”221 Alex Comfort goes on to say that ‘life-centred’ cultures develop in ‘matriform’ societies, giving support to the feminine aspects of cooperation, production and creation ere mentioned.222

Again, from Jungs point of view it would suggest that the inbalance found in alienated human culture is premised on firstly, men’s lack of unconscious development and female guidance in the working environment, and secondly, from women’s powerlessness to be part of this working environment. It only confirms to me how much the unconscious is repressed in the human condition and why patriarchal societies gave rise to concentrated centres of power and resources. Over millennia it indicates, as Jung points out, the primitive nature of the human condition which subsequently developed one-sidedly. But there are those who practise unconscious motivation as a way of life. It vindicates to us spiritually that at genetic culmination 'original sin' is the loss of immortality and innocence in our definition of a material world. Well, that is how it can feel like. It is why nocturnal emissions, I assume, were considered the bane of many a Christian forefather. And it explains why most churches or gathering centres were first located outside city walls and towns, as were many pagan shrines of antiquity, for their proximity to nature. In a word, the secular spirit was born from the denudation of nature and an unnatural concentration of resources disconnected from the ephemeral life of the peasant masses as the Christian experience vindicates. But a renewed attitude to unconscious motivation in a patriarchal society will recover its feminine aspects to surface in a man’s will, and these will equate with Mother Nature and its powerful elemental forms, to the effect of stirring the masses into a decentralised economy and a soul-force far greater than the shrinking environment of a city or town could muster. In a sentence it would represent a revolution and it doesn’t have to be religious, just spiritual. My example of Egypt shows that it was wholly an advanced primitive culture at the time in which the psyche of men was still very much feminine in its make-up, and by extension much of the world’s great civilizations of antiquity. And this is very much different to the ‘mechanical Christianity’ conducted in towns primarily for the ‘respectable’ citizen that Paul Johnson refers to. When one is looking for an interpretation of events, in order to gain any credibility the first place to question is human nature and how it changes the behaviour of the masses. As such it is easy to explain the demise of a religion through the corruptibility of its aspirations and vision. But to understand this one has to step out of culture and draw nearer to the origins of consciousness in order to grasp its greater reality.

Leaving aside the idea of repression and hence its effect to engender the masses in materialist hierarchical structures for the moment, Paul Johnson says that the laity in the European Middle Ages was quite content to overlook much of the internal scandulous activities regarding the appointment of clerics and their fiscal arrangements so long as there was always a pious element to the episcopacy of the Church.223 In this something must be said of the laity who composed much of the skilled labour, and peasant masses in general. Much depended on the fertility of the soil and the common prosperity as to whether the proletariat should be well-represented by the priests or not since, as I say, most parish churches needed to make a profit.224 Generally though, towards the end of the Middle Ages the majority of priests were unwilling to live in the country where hierarchical structures were less pronounced and enforced, and those that did were generally ignorant men whose lives could be quite abject, for instance there was no real collegiate system to educate them. This is apart from the monastic movement which itself was initially quite rigid in its make-up. Yet even they were susceptible to a massive decline of morals by the end of the 15th century in which Paul Johnsons portrays the Benedictine establishments as developing into no more than priveleged organisations and guest houses for the wealthy.225 For instance the big abbeys were nearly always on royal routes from which they delivered large-scale hospitality to its government officials and the rich. It was no coincidence that the abbots belonged to this wealthy class and already had their own buildings by the 12th century. The sums paid out for lavish visits became astronomical; the higher clergy, especially the bishops could have feasts that entertained thousands of guests. Added to this were the hunting activities of abbots, a hallmark of upperclass status, and the collegiate activities of the Benedictine abbeys that were reserved solely for them.

220 Peter Marshall, op. cit., pp594-5 221 Comfort, Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State: A Criminological Approach to the Problems of Power, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950, pp80-1 222 Peter Marshall, op. cit., pp595 223 Paul Johnson, op.cit., p222 224 Ibid., pp228-229 225 Ibid., pp236-238

Having ceased to be a spiritual organisation with the abbots expenses compromising most of their incomes, the amount of monks began to decline in numbers by the 13th century to the disinterest of the working class, for instance St. Gallen and Reichenau fell from 100 to 10, Cantebury being the largest at 70 during the 15th century. In the last Benedict XII had ordered that no one was to be included unless they were of noble birth on both sides and, because of this heritage and familial connection, lived like celibate country folk with rules that were virtually self-defined. The pivotal economic role that the Benedictines once played had now all but disappeared at the exclusion of its poorer prospecting members. Quite frankly they had lost the manpower that epitomised their revolutionary agricultural skills that had furnished the early part of the Middle Ages. And with this came the evacuation of the peasant’s noble representation, the currency turned away from religiosity and was entrenched in secular economics instead.

Peasants were a different kettle of fish from the so-called respectable citizen or well-to-do benefactor who owned property. In fact, you can count on one hand how man peasant saints there have been. Removing the modern romantic and idyllic image of country life may reveal the truer reality of a thick-skinned hard-working and insatiable member of society who premised everything on agricultural success. But the thing that bound Christian society together for so long was this hope of salvation and the afterlife, and this had been a social inheritance from the days of its tribal roots, not least the societas Christiana that partially flourished in its Carolingian heyday. Johnson says that peasants valued the Church quite simply to avert disaster, in whatever form, and much of this depended on the belief in relics.226 The parish priest was expected to exorcize demons, storms or swarms of locusts. But even this salvitic hope would eventually be balanced in favour of the possessing classes and so mechanical Christianity was continually oiled by its fiscal interests centred upon built-up environments but which always found their way back to Rome. In a way it defined the laissez-faire attitude of the anarchist spirit since the majority of the population thus lived, effectively, outside centralised societies. The Church had always been a touch stone for the masses, but ultimately a Holy Roman Empire based upon Rome and later Avignon, could only last as long as its predecessors did in which the economics of an Empire were eventually outstripped by its “genetic culmination” and natural capitulation. Centralisation will always be the blight of contemporary modern dysfunctional societies. And to moot this point into antiquity, consider that it was only later, after the Roman Empire was fully converted to Christianity, that many larger buildings like basilicas were constructed in major cities to house the growing converts.227 As the peasantry were perceptibly drawn into this urban secular arena of inequality and wealth disparity so the growing unrest prompted the collapse of capitalist society at its very sensual level, both from an individual and a collective point of view. Its fabric came undone on the basis that material one-sidedness is an immature spirit of relations. Time is the test and proof is in the pudding in the case of indigenous societies and wholly religious cultures like Ancient Egypt, even Rome to a degree. And so Christianity eventually fell for this same reason. It is the metaphsycial perspective that reflects itself in the peasant revolts which littered the end of the Middle Ages and hails to the unprecedented rise of material individualism and the Reformation.

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On a religious note we may ask what the Apocalypse is and why I ascribe to it the death of human culture. By self- definition it needs to involve everybody other than those who claim to be outside society; other than those who create their own realities. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops quote chapter 6 of Revelations in which "They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth.228The Christian apocalyptic vision is that the Four Horsemen are to set a divine end time upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment. (Flegg, Columba Graham (1999), An Introduction to Reading the Apocalypse. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, p90) That the number of horsemen is four is important: four is the number associated with creation (e.g., the four living creatures) or the earth (e.g., the four winds) in the Book of Revelation.” In the last year alone there have been massive rainfalls that have broken all previously kept records with subsequent flooding in Europe and other parts of the world, inundations of locusts ravaging huge areas of Africa, record

226 Ibid., pp228-229 227 Ibid., pp101-103 228 http://www.usccb.org/bible/revelation/6; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse#cite_ref-5 high temperatures in both the Artic and Antartica, plagues of forest-fires eating their way through much of the Australian bush country, and now the virus. Additionally to this it denotes a period in the history of the Earth that records one of the greatest extinction rates of flower and fauna. We may want to imagine this as the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse, but this is a simple objective viewpoint dressed in religious iconography. In reality or biological terms it is how we die to ourselves from our individuation, it is how we surrender to nature and lose conscious ‘freedom’.

Herein lies the Kingdom of God albeit metaphysically; it is within, a higher self discoverable only through its interaction with the soul and its retinue of unconscious archetypes. It is the religious mind-set premised upon sensual submission to its cause. At the same time it is more than an automatic response rooted in our unconscious. Likewise it goes beyond individuation; it needs to be recognized as an ethical flight towards a higher rationale and the impersonal. It is selfless; the loss of cultural determination is the loss of individuation as we know it, and hence the loss of conscious illusion; nature plays catch-up. This returns us to the collective unconscious and its arena of ancient archetypes feeding us the psychic projections that need to be understood as the ‘cry of the masses’ towards unity and equality of respect. It is socialism per se in which its natural leadership comes to the forefront. In my earlier references I may have penned this redemption as the individual quest, and this is because I have always considered contact with the impersonal as a return journey that is enacted throughout one’s life. But this is a choice, moreso a sacrifice of one’s spirit that evolved individuals take. It is the natural attraction found between the spiritual as a giver of life, and the material, in an act of consolidated social relations, and which describes evolution. Neither can I state that such a primitivistic mind-set is mechanical when comparing it to the secular, as opposed to the spiritual, activities of those empires and movements that have come and gone. There seems to be enough random activity in Bakunin’s ant and bee colonies to affirm such a view, that the impersonal demands its own unconscious environmental ethics, and in fact reflects more the post-modernist notions of the denaturalisation of the body when we talk about the mechanisation of humanity; conscious freedom is illusory because we are conforming to external human-made systems of authority and definition. On the contrary the concept of the Kingdom of God should reflect this primitivism, resonating with the ancient understanding of chaos as an original primordial state from which order emerged. Being anti-authoritarian by extension, the unconscious recognition of chaos strips away culture so that:

“Unlike many of the other stories in Greek mythology, it is important to understand that Chaos is actually not a primordial god or goddess. Instead, chaos is depicted as a place that exists away from the influence of the gods and goddesses. The writer Hesiod, who was one of the earliest writers to tell stories of Greek Mythology, described Chaos as the area that sits above the underworld and under the heavens. Since Chaos came before everything else existed, it was usually described as gloomy and misty.”229

Philosophers such as Heraclitus considered Primal Chaos as the true foundation of reality.230 In fact it quotes from Wikipeadia that the cosmogonic context of Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics shows Chaos to be interpreted as "the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity" or "the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests".231 (Richard F. Moorton, Jr. (2001), ‘Hesiod as Precursor to the Presocratic Philosophers: A Voeglinian View’. Archived from the original on 2008-12-11) In effect its understanding comes out of duality, a Gnostic first-century inheritance you may want to believe for the establishment of ecclesiastical authority.232 Certainly in Christianity dualism refers to the relationship between a deity and the universe; some sects like the Cathars and the Paulicians believed in the dual existence of a material world created by an evil god, and a moral god. My own interpretation would be more ontological on the basis that as soon as you apply conscious thought to a process so it defines opposition by dint of the context of humanity’s unnatural environment that he finds himself in and which is apart from nature; conscious thought is the inclination to make sense of this illusion. In reality though, I believe only via the transcendence of our material sense will the conception of duality be done away with, and this is unconsciously motivated from the impersonal. In Augustinian terms it is the pre-destined path that chooses us. Its power seems elemental, manifesting those archetypal visions of a fecund universe conjured from a faraway place that Emma Jung says cannot be

229 https://www.greekboston.com/culture/mythology/chaos/ 230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony) 231 Ibid. 232 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism; “Viewing material existence as flawed or evil, Gnostics considered the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the supreme divinity in the form of mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment.” This is very similar to my own personal understanding. Gnostic writings were very popular with early Christians up until the 2nd century. integrated into the personal, and thus speaks of an infinity, a place where we can reside in the great ‘nothingness’; it wants to keep us unconscious. This is quite interesting since it also does away with objectivity whilst projecting, as many anarchists aspire to, a non-authoritative utopian vision, albeit it is looking more like a dystopia as soon as you apply conscious thought to it as authoritarian structures are want to do. And this is the problem of individuation when the threat of a dominant ego is a result of the loss of unconscious integration of the personal. As I say, spiritual integrity requires the acknowledgement of Creation ex nihilo and the imago Dei even if I do contradict Jung’ assertion here that the impersonal cannot be integrated. Moreso to the point, the spiritual sacrifice the individual makes begins to arrogate a set of social ethics in his or her return journey from the unconscious. Let’s delve a little deeper.

Coming before Christianity this renewed concept of Chaos tells of a place that needs to be unconsciously engaged, which Oscar Wilde succinctly puts it in anarchist overtones:

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves the one country for which Humanity is always landing. And when humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of utopias.”233 (Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism, p34)

Utopia almost feels untouchable yet realisable as a part of our divine inheritance. Only from the outside, objectively, are these places perceived mechanically, and are thus prone to conscous criticism and unrealistic projections. But it is precisely its subjective appeal to the anarchist thinker that allows a powerful expression of the imagination that breathes life into the universe. From the inside it is all impulsive and chaotic, the journey that must be taken if conscious authority is to be revoked; from the outside it is compulsive and ordered that needs define the existence and “realisation of utopias”. The true understanding of chaos to me has always been that which is hidden, unconscious and pre-destined. I may be accused of primitivism myself, as a member of the new green paganistic movement for instance, but this reflects also what an early Christian movement would have appeared to behave like, rooted in the inherited social apocalypticism for the death of materialism, and considered by emperors such as Nero to embody hatred against all mankind. In fact, affirming the words of Jesus that “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), they were regarded as ethically intolerant. The Roman historian Tacitus explains that when, on 19-27 July AD64, the emperor Nero was blamed by the Roman populace for the fire that destroyed Rome leaving only four of its fourteen quarters intact, he in turn blamed the Christians.234 (Tacitus, Annals, 15.44) It is by all intents and purposes the anarchism of a new religious consciousness, with the same scorn and victimisation thrown upon them as subsequent objectors to the State experienced over the ensuing centuries. Like I say, it is not so much the behavioiural patterns one may identify with, say in the workings of ant nest or a beehive, coloured as they are by one’s preconceptions and expectations, but rather the subjective appeal to respond in an unconscious way towards a greater intelligence and an unknown source. Perceived like this, it is not authoritarian.

Not to lose my track here though, the idea of divine justification from such an archetype as the ‘Father’ was familiar to the Greek mind as was the notion of the temporal infinity.235 (Guthrie, W.K.C. (2000). A History of Greek Philosophy: Volume 1, The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge University Press, pp59, 60, 83) I have already referred to the idea posed by Jung towards the affirmation of this impersonal being that one invisibly acknowledges in the unconscious but as such she denotes as non-intergrable. Both Judaism and Christianity developed personal and impersonal concepts of this relationship. But this idea of the divine as an origin influenced the first Greek philosophers too.236 (Nilsson, Vol I, p743; Jaeger (1952, p33) And there are many stories in antiquity that give substance to this assertion. For instance the Chaoskampf myth depicting the struggle against a chaos monster in the form of a serpent or dragon is prevalent throughout the world’s legends and often includes a hero-type. This has extended correlations throughtout the Middle East and North Africa, such as in the ere-depicted battle between the followers of Set and Horus, and reaffirms the ideas of Egyptian duality.237 (Wyatt, Nicolas (2001-12-01), Space and Time in the Religious Life of the Near East, A&C Black. pp210–211) But of obvious note is the Christianized versions of it too, notably the impact it had on the early Christian movement for Christ the Saviour from the Ancient Roman worship of Saturnalia, of which I have already noted, and Mithras. In this latter the Roman sun god hero was variously described as ‘the Way,’ ‘the Truth,’ ‘the

233 Marshall p662 234 https://www.livius.org/sources/content/tacitus/tacitus-on-the-christians/ 235 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony) 236 Ibid. 237 Ibid

Light,’ ‘the Life,’ ‘the Word,’ etc. and who was also represented as carrying a lamb on his shoulder.238 (Gerald Berry, Religions of the World) The protagonists in the original myth almost always feature these opposing forces of order and chaos and have an elemental nature about it in the form of storm gods or sea monsters. Thus we can see the correlations with some ancient 1st millennium Greek deities like Apollo fighting the monstrous python at the Oracle of Delphi.239 A further investigation shows that in the Near East during the 2nd millennium BCE the stories were performed at festivals and sponsored by the state as familiar epics because they reaffirmed the ideology of the king’s righteousness whose divine favouritism was linked with agrarian prosperity.240 And yet even with the rise of the Greek democratic polis the stories still maintained their effectiveness.

To assert a moot point then, the affirmation here of the divine justification of authority is ancient to say the least; its impersonal aspects evolved personally, in my opinion, as cultures became more sedentary and agrarian, as well as technological. And this is an interesting point. If you remember, the Greek East was reluctant to introduce mechanical clocks into their churches, unlike the more technologized and Roman West. But the inherited Greek idea of temporal infinity would have been challenged long before that. In Christianity, science and technology as indicators of humanity’s changing relationship with its environment (Revised and extended essay)241 I wrote:

“The large degree of technological activism was now fully prevalent across the Medieval West. For example, and referring back to Martha’s temporal status, clocks, when first invented, were banned from inside the shrines of eastern churches. The Latin Church counterpoised these conditions by allowing great numbers inside and out, this for the purpose of visually demonstrating God’s cosmic orderliness.242 During the 13th century maze or “measure” was synonymous with temperance in the popular mind. Brunetto Latini tells us that Aristotelianism gave rise to the supremacy of Temperance.243 Temperantia had also begun to be identified with Sapientia or wisdom, the figure of which had connotations with the Christ during the early Medieval Ages, having associations with labour, technology and self-control.244 The Horologium (AD1334) distinguishes these virtues as the regulators of Christian life, i.e. the voice of Christ the Logos.245 By the turn of the 15th century the Italian influence of time/temperantia entered the European courts, eliciting the need to regulate our bodies like mechanical clocks. And with this, in Du Ciel came Oresme’s divine clockmaker whereby the escapement mechanism was based upon the action of friction.246 One can see the analogy here with action or labour, really quite beyond the contemplative mentality of the Greek Church. Not least it supports my theory that logos or metaphorical semantics is in continuum with a progressive technology-bound mentality to distance itself from the symbolic motivations of a gendered pre-linguistic understanding that formed much of the basis of Greek iconography and the general meditative qualities of Eastern peoples, Gnosticism per se.”

And it may be one reason why the iconoclastic doctrinal split which centred upon the Augustinian formulation filoque in which full godhead was granted to Christ was denounced at the Council of Nicea in 787 by the Eastern Greek Church as an unacceptable Catholic insertion. Quite frankly the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible produced in the 4th century by Jerome pronounced differences in understanding between the Greek and Latin languages. But I believe Augustine may have had the profound insight here to identify this rift, premeditatively, in which a distant ‘Father’ figure representing

238 Acharya S/D.M. Murdock, ‘Mithra: The Pagan Christ’, found at https://stellarhousepublishing.com/mithra/ 239 For further information go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythia 240 Mary R. Bachvarova, From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp250-251 found at https://books.google.es/books?id=wxd- CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA251&lpg=PA251&dq=Chaoskampf+myth&source=bl&ots=_LizLYDFLh&sig=ACfU3 U1Qjt7qPZKxDBu2WjCXJi07FPDlDA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWmK_97cLoAhWS3oUKHZmFCy EQ6AEwEnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Chaoskampf%20myth&f=false 241 Available at South London Permaculture’s Market page https://www.southlondonpermaculturde.com/marketpage.html 242 White, Jr. Medieval Religion and Technology: Collected essays, University of California Press, Berkeley (1978), p187 243 Ibid., p190 244 Sarah Jane Boss Empress and Handmaid p159. 245 White, Jr., op. cit., pp192-193 246 Ibid., p195 chaos, inherited from the Chaoskampf myth, could be worshipped personally as one of the Person’s of the Trinity through the Son (hero).

You may recall that I mentioned the Hebrew word ‘Ruach’, translated as an invisible force, the ‘breath’ of God that disperses His life-force, the Old Testament of which signifies both the power of ‘wind’ and ‘breath’ that puts all things into motion. And then I went on to relate it to the Holy Spirit. I do not want to repeat my own earlier commentaries on this too much but in the form of the Holy Trinity we have all the elements of the ancient Chaoskampf myth bumdled together - the father figure (Chaos) is ‘defeated’ by the son figure (Hero), indicated by his elemental control, that vindicates his divine status as the rightful heir and giver of culture. Again, in its earlier Greek form we may have been referring to a Prometheus-type character who defies the gods by stealing fire from Heaven and giving it to humanity as civilization.247 And what illuminates this point even further is the fact that the name ‘Prometheus’ (/prəˈmiːθiəs/; Greek: Προμηθεύς) has connotations with the meaning ‘forethought’ which, in Christian language is related to Augustine’s higher anima, mens, and the rationale basis for predestination. That is, by defeating the unconscious we give it conscious form, and so the Son is consubstantial with the Father in his divinity, as Christ is with humanity. It is definitely sounding more Freudian in its concept, and supported by the assertions of Alex Comfort I mentioned earlier of this continuity of relationship between father and son.

As I said then, there was a definite paradigm of consciousness in early Christianity that Augustine consolidated in his doctrinal hermeneutics that shows a deliberate desire to deviate in the evolution of Christianity away from Judaism and paganism in general. What we are seeing is this idea that the impersonal (Chaos), something that cannot be integrated into conscious forms according to Jung, can now be approached through a relationship with the environment in its elemental forms (storm gods) as the ‘breath of Yahweh’ or the Holy Spirit acting through the hero but that it requires a further change of consciousness from the inherited post-Socratic Greek way of thinking. If you recall also, the journey to Chaos and back is here accorded a spiritual transformation and a great sleep cognate with death and rebirth. Represented in an innumerable amount of myths and legends including those I mentioned like Arthur, David and Horus they confirm the need for an heir. The storm gods fighting the serpents of chaos evokes the ancient power of Odin in the warlike qualities of the Valkyries, the swan-like maidens who carry his wind (breath) into battle. Engendered thus, with the feminine attribute of men’s unconscious side, the heroes who die on the elemental battlefield are reborn again in Valhalla all the while civilization progresses on the ground from those who survive. By extension also it is a heroic experience for the select few in the eschatology of the Church and the Parousia however much that number may be. In relation to purgatory and the existence of hell-theory some early fathers used it to justify Heaven to the unsophisticated mind in order to make salvation more credible; Paul Johnson quotes figures ranging from 1 to 10,000 rising towards 1 in 1,000 by the end of the 13th century.248 But the Dark Ages preferred keeping these numbers low in order to emphasize, if not primarily to break from paganism, as difficult as possible the full remission of sin. In doing so it used its Gnostic leverage to hammer home the alternatives. It seemed to vindicate the need for an arduous, sometimes life-threatening, penance and the pessimism of a material age. This is the mythopoetic lifestyle, albeit the veracity of it severely changed with mechanical Chrisitanity as the Middle Ages drew to a close. It is thus worth quoting parts of Revelations to show the primal idea of the origin of

civilization as the basis for divine justice and equality:

Revelation 11:7 King James Version (KJV) 7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. Revelation 13 13 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

247 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus 248 Paul Johnson, op.cit., p231

3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?

8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And so the Book of Revelations continues the theme of dragons or beasts being slayed in opposition to God or the divine. But what I am asserting here is that the impersonal is a chaotic force that awakens man in his inner torment and arrogates to him the personal need to evolve i.e. create civilization, whilst confronting the unconscious nature of Jung’s ‘faraway existence’ and origins through the elemental environment. More than this, it is not everyone’s premise; evolution seems to be the hero’s prerogative only.249 It is no wonder the early Church wanted to emphasize the paucity of salvation through the complete remission of sin. Augustine, realising this paradigm shift, wants to drop the shackles of his Manichean roots and the Gnostic idea of the duality of existence in his own life. He now sees the divine playing itself out on the terrestrial Earth that gives rise to his City of God. It is here that the elect - the saints - are drawn up into the path of righteousness. In terms of Preterism Revelatons presents early Christianity and the plight against the Romans, but for all intents and purposes it allegorically appeals towards popular imagery that can be reflected in any iconic battle between the forces of good and bad.250 In the final battle the two beasts are defeated by Christ, the body of the Church, but this represents an historical period of time up until the Parousia or Second Coming.

Now, if the myth is taken literally then one would only be applying an objective viewpoint, and that is not how dreams, myths or phophecies are to be interpreted. In fact Jorge Bucay mentions this point that most myths try to give authenticity to the contemporary times it is applied in, by the poet, narrator, even minstrel in their performances which draw on popular archetypes, and as such over time are added to and recounted indefinitely.251 Firstly, we would have to see the Kingdom of God represented here as an infinite Chaos not Order, certainly not the technologized order of imperialism, and hidden from conscious view. Only through the ‘heart’ of those who accept they are predestined will it reveal itself. The true fight then is not the one that is to come but the one that is already here in man’s lack of faith. The apocalypse is the death of compulsion and order; it is the true spirit that one identifies in anarchy towards the need for change and authenticity, and a return to Jung’s non-integrable unconscious that gives birth to an infinite Creation ex nihilo, but that the imago Dei located in the higher self is the bridge to this unknown scribing of the divine ‘Father-figure’ of ancient religions. It metaphysically dissects Augustine’s mind and the Church’s doctrinal policies per se by excluding any desire to separate the hero from the divine source, creatio de nihilo,252 in the process making the ‘Father’ personal and psychologically apprehensible as an elemental force under the control of its heroes, Prometheus, Apollo, Saturnalia, Mithras, et al. And bestowed upon them all is the foresight or prophecy to see what is coming; and this in confirmation of

249 I am reminded of J. R. Tolkien’s There and back again in which the hero Bilbao Baggins goes on a quest to slay the dragon Smaug, having invaded the dwarf kingdom of Erebor 150 years prior, and who was now terrorising the local human villages. Tolkien was especially inspired by Celtic and Nordic myths; The Hobbit, (1937) 250 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(Revelation) 251 Jorge Bucay, El Mito de la Diosa Fortuna, Integral (2006), pp78-79. I talk more on this book further along. 252 Augustine used this expression as opposed to ‘ex nihilo’ to show continuity in substance with the imago Dei. See fn.19. their heirship. More importantly, the true advances in culture that they bring are “invisible”, it works with nature and not against it. This return journey warrants a realisation at “genetic culmination” in which all those potentials are resubsumed into Creation and one is thus created (personified) in the image of their perfect consort, Mother Nature, and her impersonal masculine elemental powers of expression in the form of the gods, goddesses, and heroes of antiquity. The whole story is an invitation to the Great Death. Complete knowledge is a fleeting, transcendent moment as ‘I’ resume my position in the unconscious at the redemption of origins. ‘I’ am primitive; technology baulks at the tide of destiny and chaos is unleashed. Gods, spirits, elementals then, appear to give form to the chaotic element from the inside as nature resumes her pre-destination and evolution. Like Augustine alluded to, the means by which we return to the unconscious at the cost of our conscious freedom needs to be an act of redemption. Logos resumes its base through a coming-to- knowledge. Rather than being critical of Creation Augustine now sees the choice that humanity makes in his procreative activities towards the conscious ‘freedom’ that needs to be given up or the sinful pride and wounded nature that would otherwise prevail. Let’s view his message even deeper, in relation to the dominant thinking of the Church that found its way in the theology of the Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509–64).

Because of Adam Original Sin is transmitted to his descendants via concupiscence or a strong sexual desire which Augustine referred to as "hurtful desire",253 (Augustine of Hippo, Imperfectum Opus contra Iulianum, II, 218) a sort of psychical masochism if you like rooted in the soul and body of the religious ascetic. The soul is the collective influence that men are susceptible to whilst the body remains the passive seat of this influence which can be conditioned one way or another. As I say, the soul-force develops within one’s social groups, fraternities that can be spiritual, political, sporting etc. and which fundamentally share a code of conduct or ethics. Without these ethics we would veer towards a self- gratifying way of life which Augustine was to level at his contemporaries like Julian of Eclanum ere mentioned, a follower of Pelagianism. It was Augustine though, who added to the commentaries of earlier writers the concept of inherited guilt (reatus) in which the infant is eternally damned at birth. (Wilson, Kenneth, Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp93, 127, 140, 146, 231–233, 279–280) In his former writings Augustine said that the free will to do good, although enfeebled, persisted and could not be destroyed by original sin.254 But the popular Calvanist and Lutheran view of the Reformation adopted Augustine’s later views after 412 CE in which he says free will was lost except only to commit sin. (Wilson, Kenneth (2018), pp16–18, 157–187) Hence we get this tension that exists between free will on the one hand, and knowledge as wisdom or sapientia on the other; one cannot accomodate both simultaneously. The difference is very subtle. In effect, one is born with original sin which removes free will enough only as much as it allows one to continue to sin, which by extensionis is conscious delusion anyway. It wants to damn everybody, the Protestant movement seizing upon this ecclesiastical tension to further its individualism and move it out of the hands of the priests. This doctrine is now considered a heresy in the Catholic Church who maintain that “Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle." [Catechism Catholic Church 405] "Weakened and diminished by Adam's fall, free will [to do good] is yet not destroyed in the race." [Council of Trent (Sess. VI, cap. i and v)] Of course, had not the Church rescinded this position it would be failing in its solteriology by self-defining itself as no more than a care-home for perpetual sinners.

Joshua Evans in his exegesis argues that the central hermeneutical issue regarding Augustine’s nature of concupiscence through his later texts locates concupiscence frequently as a bodily desire, even though many commentators are variously divided on the matter.255 “Some scholars suggest that Augustine thinks the body cannot, in principle, be a cause of desires. For these scholars, the concept “concupiscence of the flesh” is strictly a metaphor for the worldly or vitiated desires of the soul.” The problem arises from the will’s misplaced love and hence, as an emotional force is likewise attributable to the soul. Now I have already explicated my own personal theories on the matter when I say that the soul or soul-force, as the collective consciousness, acts upon the individual’s personal unconscious who then sensually inherits its herd instinct. Thus said, this releases the “inherited” principle of sin through bodily desire which I believe Augustine was referring to, but it is not necessarily comprehended as such if the individual has no ethical basis for its realisation. And in vindication of Augustine’s sin-grace model, quite frankly without sin there can be no grace either. By imparting an ethical code the individuation process will temper its emotional development so that now, it is the hero who needs to slay the dragon of chaos if he or she wants to evolve culture ethically and metaphysically beyond its unconscious and elemental basis. These are the aspirations of society that are upheld by its well-to-do pioneers by which the Church saw itself as the solteriologic

253 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo 254 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin 255 Joshua M. Evans, op. cit., p11, 78 vehicle for those thick-skinned and superstitious peasant masses who had little education, if any, but a desire for prosperity. And again, it falls to Augustine’s Manichean roots in trying to disengage himself from its Gnostic dualism, that many commentators now and then reflected in his ambiguous writings, by deliberately avoiding any sense of separation between the soul and body; I reiterate from earlier, he changed his views later in his life to assert that the soul has always belonged to the body.

This sin-grace model is not something the Church invented out of nowhere. It was the inheritance of a mythopoetic lifestyle that infused cultures for millennia. The Genesis story “needs” to attribute a primal mover in Adam if it is to make sense of its own Christology in order for the hero figure to reclaim culture to oneself. As such, according to Augustine the first human beings were fractured in their original unity and harmony between body and soul.256 As Hunter confirms, it stresses the element of the first sin. He quotes:

“It is impossible for the will of a man not to come tumbling down on him with a thunderous and devastating crash if he so exalts it as to prefer it to that of the One who is his superior. This is what man has experienced in his contempt of God’s command, and by this experience he has learned the difference between good and evil, that is, the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience, namely, of pride and contumacy, of the perverse imitation of God, and of pernicious liberty. The tree which was the occasion of this experience for man received its name from what happened there. [...] For we would not feel evil except by experience, since there would be no evil unless we had committed it.” (Gen. litt. 8.14.31; trans. Taylor 1982) (6)

And so what we have here is the religious vindication for the upholding of a mythopoetic lifestyle by its protagonists who want to further the cause of human culture above its corporeal base. This has always been my position too albeit I have apprehended it more fully anthropologically. In the manner that Adam “stole” from the Tree of Life the knowledge of good and evil, as Prometheus conjured fire from Heaven, it is an anthropological justification for the acceptance of Jung’s God as an unconscious ‘faraway existence’ in the imagined Chaos of antiquity, a necessary evil you might like to think, but which is now obviously contextualized in the image of a fallen man. Whereby the divine image Adam had received in Creation is lost in sin, and by extension through conscious delusion, it is then regained through God’s grace or sapientia. (Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 6.27.38 (CSEL 28. 198-9) My own thinking is vindicated here because in Retractationes Augustine revises this claim, arguing that the imago Dei is distorted but not destroyed by sin.257 (Augustine, Retractationes 2.24.2 (CCSL 57. 110)) As such Christ is likened to sapientia or wisdom and the continuum between Chaos and Order. This is “the way”, “the path”, “the light”, that humanity must follow if the soul is to find redemption and continuity with Chaos the Father; the Christ here emphasizes the relationship with God as a Christian evolution from its pagan roots. Matthew Drever confirms Augustine’s stance in the matter whereby in books 6 and 12 of De Genesi ad litteram for the soul’s origin de nihilo, Augustine is reading soteriological issues through God’s Creation.258 The soul is created de nihilo in the same substance only because of Adam’s sin and man’s fallenness. This is the bridge for a personal God. He quotes:

“As Augustine’s concerns about the mutable soul slide into the dilemma of sin, so his analysis of the divine image within a Pauline framework (e.g., Colossians 3:9-10, Ephesians 4:23-24) reads in close proximity the events of creation, fall, and redemption. The Word creates the soul according to the divine image, human sin distorts this image, and the Word incarnate reforms the image [in Christ].”

This is all very interesting as the Church progresses through its theological instigations. It poses a critical question regarding the nature of free will. The spiritual battle is quite apparent in all religions and spiritualities, as well as in humanitarian and atheistic belief systems. It is the spiritual battle that Bakunin may have indirectly referred to as the quest of the individual to have a voice in, and to integrate with, his community but whose individuality is only given salience by the group consciousness or soul-force. It is the rationality of Kropotkin’s herd instinct, as well as the early pioneers of the environmental movement like the Romantic Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) referenced in the sanctity and natural community of forest groves.259 In this Thoreau once described his experiences as a muskrat where even his

256 David Hunter, op. cit., p358 257 Matthew Dever, op.it., p22 258 Ibid., p23 259 D. Kinsley, Ecology and Religion: Ecological Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Prentice-Hall International Ltd. (London, 1995), pp141-144 bare feet could discover empirical truths.260 As with Leopold they recognized an underlying life force that sensually animated nature.261 Contrarly science, as an aspect of the humanist tradition, was just another part of the general self- centred, anthropocentric calculating attitude of public policy which dehumanized people by cutting them off from sympathetic communion with Creation. John Muir (1838-1914) also shunned the comforts of life in his exploration of unpopulated wilderness.262 It is exactly this naturalist communion with wild nature that grants a liberating influence, existing primarily for itself and creator and made first and foremost for its own happiness.263 As such, freedom is the deeper sensual self, which I referred to earlier as the lower soul that Kroptkin ascribed a higher intelligence to in the need to perceive the integration of all beings through mutual aid. It definitely points to an unconscious will towards survival. In Christian terms this is understood as the Body of Christ, the Church.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14 King James Version (KJV) 12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

14 For the body is not one member, but many. But here is the crux of the matter. It is not everyone’s prerogative. Simply being herded into built-up surroundings like a city removes one’s subjective reference with wilderness including the wilderness of the mind because it is an alien environment. Chaos, and thus the Father figure of antiquity, is out of unconscious reach. This cannot be the “invisible” advances in culture that work with nature. It is precisely these types of environments that necesitate the need to transcend because it is here that man experiences, first and foremost, his fallenness from nature and the repression of his unconsciousness. In this latter he or she is denied the androgynous image of God. It is want for a revolution so to speak. And the clear signification of this is male’s objective dominance over his sensual feeling self whilst the female is bound biologically to those creative processes. Those thick-skinned peasants were probably not as “thick” as you might think. In fact Johnson implies that they can be quite rapacious outside of their own subjective milieus, undermined by the temptations of their materialist neighbours. I have already referred to the individuation process which progresses without the ethics of equality. Yet this does not preclude the possibility that spirituality can resurface in these alien environments towards its egalitarian motives. Hence much of the resistance against the State has always been a factor of the loss of people power and the rise of egocentric individualism which, for all intents and purpose, is objectivism.

“Objectivism holds that the purpose of morality is to define a code of values in support of one’s own life, a human life. The values of objectivism are the means to a happy life… The cardinal values of Objectivism are Reason, Purpose, and Self” 264

William Thomas goes on to say that Objectivism was coined for the era of industrial capitalism, “that a harmony of interests exists among rationale individuals… [that] does not come at the expense of another, a life of mutual respect and benevolent independence is possible for all.” He then goes on to describe its self-affirming values in the wider use of the philosophy. I find this quite delusionary in the sense that it is an elitist point of view in respect of the fact that history has shown how inequality fractures society and keeps many people subjugated towards the express purpose of furthering elitism. Maybe this is a cause of its failure. It can only be a factor though, of centralised economies and the herding of labour into such industrialised environments. It comes as no surprise then that Protestantism, through Lutherism265 and

260 Worster, D., Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd Ed., Cambridge University Press (1994), p79 261 Ibid., pp86-87; D. Kinsley, op. cit., pp144-147 262 D. Kinsley, op. cit., p147. 263 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, pp127-129. 264 William Thomas for The Atlas Society, ‘What is the Objectivist Position in Morality (Ethics)?’ found t https://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/what-is-objectivism/objectivism-101-blog/3369-what-is- the=objectivistposition-in-morality-ethics 265 Martin Luther issued a notice of 95 theses partly in protest against the selling of indulgences in the Catholic Church and also the authority of the Pope. Basic to this was the primacy of biblical scripture, the sola scriptura. Early protestant thinking can be traced to the 12th century.

Calvinism in particular, in continuing this work ethic, looked towards material well-being as a direct blessing from God.266 Good works were now conceived with diligence, and was a sign of the elect who were chosen to be saved. In many ways, as a religion, it succumbed to the tide of materialism as did Catholicism in its mechanical Christianity.

Whilst bearing this in mind it is worth keeping in context the early views of the forefathers, in particular Augustine, for it can help us to understand the concept of an impersonal God made personal through the environment. As I say, everything seems to lead back to the logos or ‘breath of God’ that is spiritually identifiable in social groups or collectives that share common values – the Word incarnate in the Body of Christ. Augustine taught that human freedom is preserved by God who orders all things.267 (Levering, Matthew (2011). Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths. New York: Oxford University Press, p44) As was often the case Pelagius would have a great influence on Augustinian doctrine, albeit disputatiously, articulating that, even without the necessity of God’s grace, humans have in themselves the means to lead a morally good life through the goodness of Creation. This is the reclaimed view of Objectivists who are but referring more to a material paradise akin to the Protestant cause. But where Pelagius claimed that Adam and Eve merely provided a bad example, if you like we could say that they were naïve in their premeditations, Augustine held that it is not by example that the sins of Adam are transmitted but from the procreative activities of one’s parents who experience libido (or concupiscence). Hence Augustine upheld the life of celibacy even if the sexual passion remained and could not be done away with. In this the forefathers concede that the sexual drive was beyond their means to eradicate but arise in order to be spiritually overcome. So even if the Calvanist and Lutheran view upheld Augustine’s later austere exposition of the free will to sin at the expense of knowledge (sapientia) it seems Augustine, for want of desire, needed to vindicate predestination as God’s “personal” ordering of things outside the human realm of sin; the hero’s quest embodies this act of realisation. And this must have been the intution of those Protestant forefathers too, in the wake of mechanical Christianity that had succumbed to indulgences, for with both the early as with the modern Church fathers to reason with free will was just folly, mere conscious delusion for the gratification of one’s intellect. More than anything this realisation indicates the soul-force of a new spiritual movement in the making. It maintains the religious concept of there being a pastor whose flock had been scattered by folly (Cf. God is called “the Shepherd” (Gen. 49:24); the Israelites described as sheep without a shepherd or master (1 Kng. 22:17; 2 Chr. 18:16)). This theme is taken up by many of the prophets, especially Ezekiel and Jeremiah. By inference then, it maintains that spiritual leaders receive divine justification to carry out God’s will in the process vindicating logos as the Word of a personal God and continuity with the Unknown. The concept of Predestination was to consolidate, in many ways, the classical Greek ideas surrounding the arbitrariness of fate and fortune. I must admit, I have to screw my memory in order to recall any references to it in the Bible but it is a theme well endowed in myth.

This speculative base of luck or chance has been highlighted by Jorge Bucay in El Mito de la Diosa Fortuna who, as a psychotherapist and psychodramatist, tells the story of when he rescheduled an appointment in 1999 for another day to fly to Spain from Buenos Aires having learned of an error in his timetable only the day before the flight was due. In consequence he was saved from certain death as the plane crash-landed and killed seventy three persons on board, most of which were in the front seats in which his flight ticket indicated.268 His point being, that he felt more fortunate in that single missed flight than the other two hundred and eight six he subsequently took in the preveious 2 years of his life (at the time of publishing in 2006). And this is the theme of the book, how one person’s luck may appear to another person’s disadvantage or vice-versa. The basis of this idea is the means to perceive such events, whether in full empirical detail or not, and whether the same recorded facts actually condition the context of our understanding. More than anything it asks the question ‘What is luck?’Towards the end of the book he tells a story of Tyche, goddess of luck (Fortuna in the Roman pantheon) which I abbreviate here for its simplicity, brevity and beauty of concept:269

Having been pampered by her father Zeus, king and supreme ruler over all the other gods and goddesses, and a child to the comely Thetis, goddess of what is legal and fair, when she reached maturity Zeus commanded the other gods and goddesses to bestow their unique abilities upon her. Mercury would teach her to run even faster, and Demeter all the knowledge of agriculture and plant husbandry. Hera, Zeus’ wife, in case of being struck with jealousy, was not asked to confer any of her benefits and so avoided her; she was probably used to the sight since Zeus had a notorious sexual apetite for human and beast alike. In fact she laid down a

266 Elizabeth Breuilly and Martin Palmer (eds.), Christianity and Ecology, pp86-87. 267 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo 268 Jorge Bucay, op. cit., p35 269 Ibid., pp81-148

rule that those born of a bastard union could only mingle with humans and not with the pure race of gods. Having prevised this Zeus had already conceived a plan to make her pampered by all the gods and to keep her place amonst them. The story goes that in Olympus immortality, health, youth and beauty were maintained by drinking the magical potion every morning of nectar and the food of ambrosia that appeared by itself for their indulgement. Then one day, in order to prevent humanity from discovering these elixirs, Zeus decreed that only those fruits that had avoided the first rays of sun maintained their magical effectiveness. This posed a dilemma for the pantheon of gods and goddeses whose divine qualities depended upon them, but Tyche sought to collect the fruits in the early hours of the day and prove her value with those endowed gifts of speed and plant knowledge. Then one day when she did not appear, the gods and goddesses not overly worrying if only a day was missed, set out to look for her. They found her trapped in a fisheman’s net who was unwilling to let her go, fascinated as he was with her beauty. Having been granted anything in exchange he was given his liberty, and the pantheon returned to their fortunate ways. The humans, on the other hand, talked among themselves and said, that if they could ever catch this goddess again they would be be granted freedom in exchange.Having realized the threat that humans now posed to her Tyche solicited the further help of the gods and goddesses. From Diana she learnt to stalk in secrecy, from Aphrodite to wear her hair in a long plait in front of her breast. From Uranus she learnt not to fall for any traps, and from Ares the strategy of war. From Bacchus she learnt how to intoxicate those who threatened to trap her. It succumbed that she walked the trails in great secrecy so that she never went by the same way twice nor retraced her own footprints.

Now the moral of the story is quite illuminating. First we discover that fortune favours those who know the secret of prosperity. But to know this secret is a form of dependency or addiction in itself for those of high birth who jealously guard it from the humans. Of humans though, their fates are governed by those of high birth (the gods and goddesses) so that their caprichious qualities subjugate them to their whims which appear as chance encounters. Lacking the ability to previse the future they instead hearken after freedom from the fates, represented by the three Moirai, Clotho the spinner of the thread of life, Lachesis the allotter who measured the thread of life, and Atropos the cutter of the thread of life. In other words these fates govern the human perception of temporal life past, present and future. In fact some sources say that the gods and goddeses were also informed by them, having a supreme position for both the Greeks and Romans, Bucay explaining that the difference being that the gods and goddesses were capable of prevising their own fates without changing them whilst humanity remained ignorant and at their mercy.270 Here we can begin to understand how the concept of luck comes into perception, especially through ignorance.But what is also interesting is how the role of Zeus changes here from commander to server of the fates,271 and this would suggest a shifting view between a personal and impersonal god. For instance Hesiod later acknowledged the fates as the daughters of Zeus and Themis, the embodiment of divine order and law. Plato’s Republic illustrates them as daughters of Ananke (necessity or destiny) in line with the Homeric poems in which Zeus is a guider of destiny. And this is the relationship that Bucay focuses upon from the Odes, written just before the turn of the millennium, between fortune and necessity or inevitability and the different contexts for ascertaining thus. Further:

“It seems that originally the word ‘moira’ did not indicate destiny but included ascertainment or proof, a non-abstract certainty. The word ‘daemon’, which was an agent related to unexpected events, came to be similar to the word ‘moira’. (Martin P. Nilsson,1967. Die Geschichte der Griechischen Religion. Vol I, C.F. Beck Verlag., München, p217) This agent or cause against human control might be also called tyche (chance, fate): "You mistress moira, and tyche, and my daemon." (Euripides, Iph.Aul. V 113)

And so this is how I surmise the story above, those of high birth (soul) have made luck or fortune their science because they can ascertain the benefits of chance events, for instance Zeus foreseeing the intentions of Hera set out to expose the dependency of the rest of the gods upon nectar and ambrosia, and this only added to the favour of his pampered daughter Tyche. On the other hand the ignorant, in their conscious delusion, only seek freedom from the gods in their will to power, and this in itself would be an act of redemption. It points to a hierarchical society in which, for the high-born, the objects of their materialistic desires – phsyical beauty, immortality and material abundance – are to be preserved at

270 Ibid., pp75-77 271 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai whatever cost (something Augustine could have identified with as the pride of sin), even if it means that some humans can rise to challenge their superiority. And this relates further, by extension, to the creation of civilization by those who manoeuvre their positions of privilege within it. It seems to vindicate their hero status that those who can advance civilization earn their divine authority. This is supported further:272

“The word nomos, ‘law’, may have meant originally a portion or lot, as in the verb nemein, "to distribute", and thus "natural lot" came to mean "natural law". (L.H.Jeffery (1976) Archaic Greece. The City-States c. 700–500 BC . Ernest Benn Ltd. London & Tonbridge p42) The word dike, "justice", conveyed the notion that someone should stay within his own specified boundaries, respecting the ones of his neighbour. If someone broke his boundaries, thus getting more than his ordained part, then he would be punished by law. By extension, moira was one's portion or part in destiny which consisted of good and bad moments as was predetermined by the Moirai (Fates), and it was impossible for anyone to get more than his ordained part. In modern Greek the word came to mean "destiny" (μοίρα or ειμαρμένη)."

The correlation here with property, power and prosperity is unambiguous, for now we understand why Olympus became one of the greatest pieces of real estate in the Greek world. Through such though, Bucay identifies a paradigm change in which the Roman goddess Fortuna, once associated with Ananke (necessity and inevitability) for her cosmic force or ruling law in the universe, is now preferred in her association with the Greek Tyche and viewed more for her capricious qualities.273 This held up until the Christian conversion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century when her temples were subsequently closed.274 But for the Romans who initially viewed the concept of ‘luck’ in terms of personal destiny (the fates) and fortune it warranted her depiction on coins and battle shields, but that Bucay says with time ‘destiny’ gave way to a perception more of accident or the unpredictable. The Greek inheritance of the intimacy of chance and destiny, relating as it did to the fates, was severed by the Romans, for reasons I believe were due to the encroaching Gnostic influence of a dualistic perception that pitted one against the other. Fortuna was thus subsequently identified as the personification of chance events and closely allied to the concept of virtus (strength of character) in the face of hardship.275 Anyone of public office who lacked virtues invited ill-fortune on themselves and Rome, vindicating my point that to make a science of luck was in itself the means to maintaining privilege in society. The Greek historian Polybius would point out that in view of a catastrophic flood, drought, or political event, even bad weather all of which had no basis in a determined cause, was thus firmly attributed to Tyche.276 (The Rise of the Roman Empire, Penguin, 1979, p29) This was epitomized in her cult whereby Tyche’s popular image was less destiny and more chance.277 Around the year 200BCE in the outskirts of Rome they erected a great bronze statue to Tyche-Fortuna illustrating the necessity of these chance events. The cornucopia (horn of plenty) is depicted being carried from which is emitted the goods or prosperity of agriculture that contained theirin the ‘goods’ of life, balanced with the ruddergubernaculum representing direction. She is thus poised on top of the wheel of fortune indicating that events can turn either way; 278 Fortuna’s name seems to derive from Vortumna (the turner of the year).279 The Greek’s favoured this representation especially by single women and those who were anxious with birth or doubted their fertility based on the unpredictability of a future that was inevitable.

To me it seems to indicate the development of a Hellenic empire that was losing its divine mythicpoetic status to a developing foreign influence and a shrinking environment of a technologized mind-set. It also illustrates the growing wealth disparity of those individuals who were increasingly motivated by materialism and elitism. We should bear in mind that Ananke must have had very early correlations with Isis for her overarching supremacy in the heavens and thus the divine authority to produce an heir. It would be the celebrated basis for engaging the unknown and relation to a distant chaos that would have also given fuel to the fire for the early Christian forefathers during the Western empire’s decline from the 4th century onwards, and so define their theological instigations against the nomenclature of Roman thought and practice whose lack of faith the concept of destiny must have once held for the early Greeks. This may not be Bucay’s admission but it shows, in a way, that Augustine hearkened back to an archaic Greece whilst quite deliberately appearing

272 Ibid. 273 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna 274 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyche 275 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna 276 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyche 277 Jorge Bucay, op.cit., p75 278 Ibid. pp76-77 279 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna to justify his own divine authoritative inheritance for the furtherance of Roman culture through Christianity. Therefore, in antiquity it arrogated the need for a spiritual renaissance in which it was identified within the milieus of the Hellenistic and Roman technological influence that permeated all stratums of society, which at the same time upheld hierarchy and privilege. It subsequently gave rise to the prevaling anarchist and libertarian contentions born of a materialistic world towards a desire to return to chaos and the hero status.

Determinism then, and its proposition that there can only be one possible future, whether political or religious,280 appears to be a mixed bag. On the one hand we have destiny or the fates at the ready to cut the threads of life, by which the foreknowledge of such an event is supported by Augustine’s predestination in which God is justified in every hero’s action. On the other hand it objectively refutes those libertarian human views as no more than conscous delusion. But subjectively it equates with the early Church’s mystical influence and ensured that metaphysical libertarianism remained a founding force in the post-Socratic period. In this, physical determinism, even if it does exist, cannot explain away the non-physical mind, will or soul that has some overriding influence over our actions. And this is the collective force over the individual I have consistently referred to, which is unconscious. Theologically metaphysical libertarianism was notably defended by Jesuit authors like Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez.281 Other important metaphysical libertarians in the early modern period were René Descartes, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Reid. As I say, my concept of the soul as a force shows that, rather than there having to be a Creator God that decreed how natural physics played itself out (determinism), by which Augustine affirmed as non-free-will, the very act of combining our social groups raises the level of intelligence collectively which in itself defines what a soul is. It bridges the problem that conscious determinism poses, namely by making it unconscious in its sensual nature as a psychic force. In this it is easier to see that determinism can have a place albeit collectively as the soul-force acting upon the individual, that the more socially and ecologically bound we are through consciousness then the more predictable are our actions. Thus conscious libertarianism, as opposed to metaphysical, is a misnomer; it is unnecessary and part of a delusory conscious self, an insight that the great mind of Augustine and other spiritual fathers, not least the apocalyptic vision of Jesus, saw in upholding that only through the resurrection of the dead i.e. the body of Christ, the Church, will humanity be liberated, akin to the fisherman in the above tale, and washed of Original Sin and the freedom of sexual passions.282 (Cf. De civitate Dei, ch. IX and XIV; On the Gospel of John, LX (Christ's feelings at the death of Lazarus, Jn 11); J. Brachtendorf (1997). "Cicero and Augustine on the Passions": p307) To be honest though, I would rather hear Augustine refer to it generically as the sensual self and the need to define oneself apart from the unconscious masses in the development of the higher self or mens where the imago Dei is located.

Maybe as an inheritance of his prior Manichaean sect, at about 412 AD Augustine became the first Christian to expound upon predestination as “a divine unilateral pre-determination of individuals' eternal destinies independently of human choice,”283 (Wilson, Kenneth (2018). Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free' Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 111. pp286–293) What does this mean? Before 396, Augustine premised his concept of predestination upon “God’s foreknowledge of whether the individual would believe in God’s grace as a reward for human assent.” (Levering, Matthew (2011), op. cit, pp48–49) In response to Pelagius though, this was evolved to mean that it is a sin of pride to assume that we are the chosen of God’s foreknowledge because of our worthiness. Nevertheless he argued that God’s grace causes individual acts of faith. (Ibid., pp47-48) It vindicates my point above, that libertarianism, in the context of sin, becomes self- negating when we share a common ethos. It is why the Church held such authoritative sway over “the flock” - the peasantry that sought salvation through God’s ordained grace were vindicated in their intuitive recognition of its leaders who were evolved enough in their higher selves to confer the values of predestination as an unconscious force in the interpretation of the scriptures. The metaphysical inquiry maintained a tension of respect, humility and equitability in this paradoxical mystery of God’s faith. As much as a soul-force will carry the individual onto a higher level of acquiescence it shows the individual to be able to generate a higher level of reason (mens) for it.

Now in line with my own metaphysical inquisition the Great Death or the death of human culture requires us to transcend the earthly realm. Again, this is very apocalyptic in its reading. It is very Islamic in its submission to Allah and the need to go inwards. It also maintains the event horizon, when as individuals we die to our reason at genetic culmination. It expounds the nature of the mind onto a modern level of particle physics and its properties of “emptiness”. Going is that

280 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics) 281 Ibid. 282 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin 283 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#Predestination soul-force and its inherited discrimination (d)evolved over millenia, and yet what will remain is pure spirit. Technology, whether ideologically or practically, may have rooted its application through the development of the logos and its usurpation of Creation, and Creation only appears to bend to the free will of humanity. Yet the more we reveal nature for its properties does it indicate how much less we actually know about it. Technology, now in its scientific clothing, quite simply defaults the human experience when its ethos is not unconsciously derived through the higher self; when it isn’t “invisible”, when it fails to work with nature. Through conscious delusion it merely widens the path towards the void or the Chaos of the origins of existence. The logos thus appears to be drawing us onto the highest levels of spirituality, forging a tract between the ignorant and the enlightened, and onto an infinite unconscious, ever expanding. It gives rise to the means by which humanity can strive for immortality in the race against genetic annihilation, an unfounded materialistic fear and yet an inevitability.284 The deeper humanity delves into the hidden secrets of nature the closer it reins in the supra-personal archetype of the Father figure or Chaos. Only now though, science is allowing an unshackled humanity in his ‘freedom to sin’ to be consciously impersonal, albeit the experience of the unknown is being objectified at the cost of its social ethics as opposed to the sensual and subjective grounding of early religious doctrine and its correlative natural lifestyle communion with nature. And this only intensifies the perpetual devolution of the human spirit as the individual consciously and materialistically develops his or her own powers of reason, as I say folly in the eyes of the religious, but as such creating on Earth its own utopian kingdom of ‘God’ albeit in the image of man. This threat of the mechanical bastardisation of the Kingdom of God, once spiritual but now secularized, now accedes to what the modern world is fully aware of, the imperative of technology and its artificial intelligence capable of providing the stimuli for a future alien environment. It is the archetype of the Father-Chaos in impersonal form without the hero, a point we are heading towards by default conscious delusion outside the natural parameters that once defined our heroic and personal supplications to Creation. Going is the Greek concept of cunning of hand, whether through sexual passion or ideology, and the future is looking more to the capability of technology to generate life of its own from the simplest building blocks.285

As such, the apocalyptic message remains; conscious man defies extinction by means of his technology. Without it Adam and Eve would reversely return to nature and the gift of the unconscious and Spirit. The Word defaults and man is fallen. His pride may allow him to believe he is God’s chosen, but the reality on earth is that his life has come to a head and the power of reason governs his every ‘determined’ move. What can only return man to harmony is the existential need to equate with the unconscious self, the higher anima/animusand its repertoire of royal personages. At the same time the lower soul acts as our vehicle towards metaphysical determinism and its natural psychical checks to our development. This is the hero’s quest in his or her self-realisation and path to the unconscious. The humbling act of allowing one’s unconscious feelings to surface introduces to our rationale the need for nature and the equality of existence. Since society will embody these principles so the individual is more clearly defined in his or her predestination; God’s grace is an unconscious will and only through the spiritual act of allowing the other side of our personality to consciously inform us do we draw closer to God. The hero is in the making only when society recognizes this leadership. Those that reach out into the higher self to where the gods and goddesses are located, once pantheistic but now monotheistic in the form of the imago Dei, carving out from their unconscious the fates the knowledge of which prepares them for their forthcoming journey, are tossed in the wellspring of elemental powers that demand mitigation. Every act shows moral correction, ethical respect, and political justification, etiquette such that Tyche portrayed in the vanquishing of her peers for the

284 The ‘vaccination’ argument is all the rage at the moment as (at time of writing) known cases of the new pandemic Covid-19 exceed 2 million infected people. The anti-vaccination movement is as old as the process, as is the fear of its side effects. Going back 150 years to the Victorian age the application of a relatively small dose of cow pox infection gave protection from smallpox and saved 100,000’s of lives, but not without social resistance. A 100-year struggle between the authorities, who first made vaccination free and then compulsory, and a sceptical public continues to this day. Whether this type of technology is “invisible” is a moot point and certainly not vindicated as new diseases evolve and cross the human-animal boundary. Added to this is the increasing anti-biotic resistance of pathogens; ‘The anti-vaccination movement that gripped Victorian England’ found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leceistershire-5071399; for further information see YouTube and other media surrounding the Bill Gates saga and the billionaire’s program for unlimited global vaccination. 285 “Technology (from Greek τέχνη, techne, “art, skill, cunning of hand”; and -λογία, -logia) is the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a pre-existing solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology advancement of Greek culture.286 Father-Zeus-Chaos, the guider of destinies and the bearer of fates, once impersonal and residing in that ‘faraway celestial plane’, only personally concedes when a true heir comes to the throne prompting a new age and civilization and a correlative paradigm shift in consciousness. The Holy Grail is filled, eternal happiness, youth and sustenance is bequeathed to the victor, and the death of culture enacts his individual salvation. A sacrificial virgin is proffered for the evolution of humanity and the furtherance of society. But for those that don’t return in their spiritual quest and hath fallen and lay slain on the battlefield, they are lifted by the Valkyries, the hand-maidens of Odin who are recalled to Mother Nature on the wind like honoured souls accompanying this redemption. The sexual adventure is reset and creativity beckons again.

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From this experience one must acknowledge the spiritual, but it is up to the public to recognize this message of mine in the current age of humanity besieged with incontrovertible evidence of mass extinction; the natural prophetic qualities of Mother Nature work through its individuals over the whole gamut of species so that natural leaders will come forward. What an opportunity to restructure our society so that we can live with the reality of death. Yes, before the current economic meltdown of human culture I was dining with my well-to-do best friends in their castle-home and telling them that the solution is to deliberately collapse society. That is now happening, albeit it is the default social outcome. The Covid-19 disease is just one of many that are evolving faster than technology can keep up, hence we see a correlative development in science and technology for survival outside the ecological home that gave us birth called the Earth. Space travel is now on the tips of our fingers and one would only think it natural that to extend across the frozen wastes of outer space is an extension of our activities here on Earth. And of course it is. The psychological collapse of civilisation and its leaders is the first indication when environments shrink and resources become scarcer. To alienate ourselves on a planet that has billions of years of life before it is the greatest heresy known to man. Religion, as a mass phenomenon, allowed the masses to bind in their commonality and unconscious. It showed direction and respect to those leaders who would pave the way. But as a parallel development it seems the greatest sin of man is not to know his human boundaries and most certainly being ignorant of the natural cues in the environment that would keep him on the road to sapientia. Scientia seems to be the materialist’s prerogative, and with it comes its own ethos, albeit we can understand now how it defines the conscious application of our will. No wonder the great religionists of the past had a variety of approaches to dealing with one of the greatest traits of our mammalian world, the joy of sex.

Pitting each other’s philosophies against one another’s viewpoint gains admission based on how revelation reveals its solutions, which for humanity is his raison d’être. The dialectical approach is the basis of conscious development on every level, no matter how simple. It changes the way we behave. As an example, my ethos, structured as it is on ecological principles but clarified and vindicated in common sense practice, has its root in observing natural systems and what these systems are informing me about. The more closely our lives depend on ecological systems the greater the ethical development of our applications because, by extension, it is holistic. But since humanity has had to reinvent nature in his technological quest, at the same time opening up chaos in the form of experimental conscious adaptation to natural exigencies that it faces including disease susceptibility, food shortages, lack of resources and pollution to name just a few, it does point some hope to the scientific quest that ameliorates our technological usurpation of the planet. We are at a real testing time in this epoch of humanity to see if we can combine our international intentions to collaborate on an impersonal level to create the ethos that will take humanity into space. However, the psychological downfalls are already apparent to scientists. That is where I come in. When you read this book it will mean different things to different people. But had I created a fiction I would not expect it to be carried into this future. Myths are the basis of our science, it is not storytelling so much but the hermeneutical basis of why science came about. But as Jorge Bucay illustrated in his own version of the Goddess of Fortune Tyche, when they have real practical application they can change the way we think and behave as a collective force. They don’t lie, and when I write I do so naturally for the future as that is the basis of Truth. So take this to heart; I should be receiving your support for being a vessel of truth that needs to be drunk. This is the Holy Grail. I expect those on the same path as me to promote my work and uphold the same principles but I won’t be disappointed if you never find solace in my words because, quite frankly, you would not have been predestined.

286 Jorge Bucay, op. cit., p89

In the below diagram, as part of the work for the extension of this book, it may be useful to understand that Augustine’s higher soul (mens) is not linear but transcends time and space (as a self-recriprocatitng spiral if you like) in conceptually locating the imago Dei above the dualistic reference points of ‘will’ and ‘knowledge’. The lower soul (anima) is indicative of the movement of consciousness between nature and spirit in a circular fashion. The sin of pride (ego) that Augustine referred to is what takes consciousness outside the transcendent realm of the imago Dei and gives rise to a shadow self on the basis of an inflated unconscious and the overestimation of one’s value. In my own interpretation the origin of an androgynous race in which gender roles were negated in the Paradise of Eden indicates, and I iterate, that the perfect being is created by a perfect environment. This is a pure state of unconsciousness. Such an environment is creatio ex(de) nihilo indicating the continuum of substance between environment and humanity. Man’s fracturing from the imago Dei results in the escalation of patriarchy and the subsequent repression of consciousness, which the early Church tried to ameliorate. This is no more obvious than in the collective psyche of women and their lack of objective rationale. But men too suffer for their lack of a complete picture and unconscious feminine development - devolved from the imago Dei they now seek to recreate nature in their own individual image. In effect the diagram below can be perceived like an eclipse of the sun. Through a shadow self we can only try to imagine and dream what an androgynous being behaved and thought like. I have tried to transcribe this concept utilizing the psychological template provided by Emma Jung.

A quick glance over the figure will show that nature is a reflex of spirit. When man denies his natural inclination to uphold his unconscious determination, as through his conscious dependence on technology, then transcendence is baulked and he remains outside of his natural power cycle. This is a fine point. Evolution requires the perpetual redemption of human nature towards the realisation of equality and diversity in all beings, which is spiritual in its nurturing of the unconscious. The obverse of this is an objective age of information technology and ultimately artificial intelligence, the default development that humanity has been heading towards. The build-up of psychic energy harboured in modern-day environments through this conscious dependence upon technology represses the unconscious spirit, elsewhere referred to as the instinct, to free up the individual to emotional activity. The emotional body is the most evolved faculty of the brain and necessitates cultivating in its movement between will and knowledge. This works on the male’s more developed objectivity towards those characteristics that are feminine in their make-up, whilst the female in a patriarchal world requires the cultivaton, as I say, of her masculine unconscious side. When the unconscious in women fails to nurture a creative outlet, the primitive female mind-set, discoverable in young women, children and indigenous cultures, acts unconsciously on the individual by dint of her living in a repressive patriarchal world. This energy needs to be dealt with. The tendency of the unconscious to dominate her femininity in these circumstances, namely because her hidden masculine side is being denied a certain amount of psychic energy and will instead live a shadowy existence, can also be understood as a type of karma. On account of its lack of objectivity it is illustrated here as the unconscious action of superstition, discrimination or prejudice, fearing or dreaming, but on a more lighter edge gives rise to curiosity and wishful thinking. It is important to understand that these qualities are not solely the premise of the woman. When men experience such it is mainly from the privileged context of a patriarchal world which has developed over millennia. Played out by the female though, in effect this state of passive objectivity can convince her of its own identity and lead to submissive behaviour. But when the female recognizes and actively nurtures her logos, her masculine equivalent is more consciously balanced in her psyche. This is the individual quest which you must realise within yourself. As such the female transcends spiritually from the shackles of her patriarchal world and begins to reclaim her fuller self – she becomes more than the biological creature men have made her out to be. The diagram below indicates this, as now her inner world negates the duality of perception through transcendence and the process of imagining what her objective endeavours can better achieve with visioning, likewise through the use of words like mantras, chants and oration, and even command. Like I say, in this latter men have been the main exponents in a patriarchal world towards their own spiritual emancipation identified by the unconscious role of the archetype of motherhood. I would also assert here that that most religious leaders are those inclined to androgyny in this wider sense, and a return to our Origins. If we follow the redemptive theme then, we can observe those inner qualities that include counsel, prayer, and creativity that are enhanced by the powerful presence of the spiritual protagonist in his or her reclaimation of the imago Dei. It is important to comprehend how at any point in our development the two sides mutually work in unison, whether we are in a primitive state or a more advanced one, and that we are, as a race, always inclined towards our spiritual foundations. But for women in particular, not any longer is she the spectator for men to make laws and decree the sentences. Recognition comes to those who can now wield knowledge; the witch trials for instance were more a patriarchal current of misogyny against female power than an appreciation of the spiritual eminence of women. These themes I will play with in the 2nd part of this book.

NATURE - Conscious determination / PRO-CREATION / Earth

Hoping or Will wishing

Fearing or Power Visioning inhibition Intuition Counsel or Deed Undeveloped empathising discrimination Prophecy Word or Meditating or prejudice judgement or praying

Imagination, Meaning or Creativity or Magic dreaming or thinking practicality superstition

Knowledge

Curiosity

Figure 8

SPIRIT - unconscious determination / PRE-DESTINATION / Kingdom of God

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